Keywords

Abortion counseling, Pain, First-trimester abortion patients, Relaxation instructions, Cognitive imagery and modeling interventions, Pain self-efficacy, Counselor attitudes and patient distress

Abstract

Four short-term interventions (relaxation instructions, cognitive imagery instructions, cognitive modeling, and vicarious modeling) were experienced by 105 first-trimester abortion patients, to determine their effects on abortion pain and self-efficacy in handling abortion pain, as measured by self-report. No significant differences were found among treatment group and controls. In fact, no significant increases were found among groups in the time the patients spent engaging in activities suggested by instructions.

However, abortion patients were found to show significant differences in abortion pain and distress by whether they had experienced natural childbirth training. Also, a sensitivity to staff attitudes was revealed by the finding of differences among counselors on patient pain sensations.

Abortion was found to. be more painful by the women in this experiment than has been previously reported. However, women were able to accurately predict how well they were I going to handle abortion pain and how distressed it was going to make them.

Notes

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Graduation Date

1986

Semester

Spring

Advisor

Houston, Sandra

Degree

Master of Science (M.S.)

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Psychology

Degree Program

Clinical Psychology

Format

PDF

Pages

78 pages

Language

English

Rights

Public Domain

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Open Access)

Identifier

DP0019484

Subjects

Abortion--Psychological aspects; Pain--Psychological aspects; Abortion--Research; Abortion--Evaluation; Natural childbirth--Psychological aspects

Accessibility Status

Searchable text

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