AbstractsMedical & Health Science

Background: Pelvic girdle pain is commonly observed among pregnant women. Lack of knowledge about the condition is still an obstacle for developing effective interventions for this group of women. The aim of our study was to discover associations between pregnancy related pelvic girdle pain and various risk factors with main focus on the psychosocial area. In addition, our twenty-year-old data presented an interesting opportunity to investigate the possibility of a change in the prevalence over time. Method: The study population included 3346 women. With data from a clinical examination and two questionnaires, we performed two logistic regression analyses in order two test four hypotheses and answer our research question Can psychosocial stress explain variation in the prevalence of pregnancy related pelvic girdle pain? Results: 802 women, 24%, of our study population, had experienced pelvic girdle pain in pregnancy. Due to large diversity in the definition of the condition, it was hard to find good comparisons that could verify a stable prevalence over time. Despite that, little evidence was found of an increase in the occurrence. One of the hypotheses concerning the existence of an association between pelvic girdle pain and emotional stress was supported. Neck pain, physician visits, headache and perceived health were predictors that contributed to support the hypothesis. In addition were parity, education, working shifts, social contact, fruit consumption and cohabitation significant explanatory variables in our models. Conclusion: The result of the study indicates that psychosocial stress has an impact on pelvic girdle pain, but it can only to a small degree explain differences in the prevalence of pelvic girdle pain.