Anxiety concerning fetal malformations in women who accept or refuse alpha-fetoprotein screening in pregnancy

Degrees of anxiety concerning fetal malformations were assessed by self-rating on Visual Analogue Scales in early, mid, and late pregnancy in 263 women who agreed to take part in a serum alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) screening program. Women who refused to undergo the test were found to have similar distributions of degrees of anxiety throughout pregnancy. Women with normal AFP-test results showed a significant decrease of anxiety between the assessments in early and mid pregnancy. The distributions in mid and late pregnancy were similar. In early pregnancy the women who refused the test displayed less anxiety than women who accepted the test. In mid-pregnancy the refusing women and the women with normal test results showed similar degrees of anxiety, but on this occasion women with initially abnormal test results displayed even less anxiety than other women. Increased attention to the women with abnormal test results during the period of the investigation together with an altered frame of reference with respec...