Abstract

The aim of the study was to: (1) Identify (early in pregnancy) psychosocial and stress-related factors that predict risk of spontaneous preterm birth (PTB, gestational age <37 weeks); (2) Investigate whether "protective" factors (e.g., happiness/social support) decrease risk; (3) Use the Dhabhar Quick-Assessment Questionnaire for Stress and Psychosocial Factors™ (DQAQ-SPF™) to rapidly quantify harmful or protective factors that predict increased or decreased risk respectively, of PTB. This is a prospective cohort study. Relative risk (RR) analyses investigated association between individual factors and PTB. Machine learning-based interdependency analysis (IDPA) identified factor clusters, strength, and direction of association with PTB. A nonlinear model based on support vector machines was built for predicting PTB and identifying factors that most strongly predicted PTB. Higher levels of deleterious factors were associated with increased RR for PTB: General anxiety (RR?=?8.9; 95% confidence interval or CI?=?2.0,39.6), pain (RR?=?5.7; CI?=?1.7,17.0); tiredness/fatigue (RR?=?3.7; CI?=?1.09,13.5); perceived risk of birth complications (RR?=?4; CI?=?1.6,10.01); self-rated health current (RR?=?2.6; CI?=?1.0,6.7) and previous 3 years (RR?=?2.9; CI?=?1.1,7.7); and divorce (RR?=?2.9; CI?=?1.1,7.8). Lower levels of protective factors were also associated with increased RR for PTB: low happiness (RR?=?9.1; CI?=?1.25,71.5); low support from parents/siblings (RR?=?3.5; CI?=?0.9,12.9), and father-of-baby (RR?=?3; CI?=?1.1,9.9). These factors were also components of the clusters identified by the IDPA: perceived risk of birth complications (p?

View details for DOI 10.1055/s-0041-1729162

View details for PubMedID 34015838