Effect of Training Metacognitive Skills and Positive Thinking Strategies on Reduction of Negative Body Image in Pregnant Women

During pregnancy, along with significant changes that may occur in a relatively short time, women experience changes in their body image creating dissatisfaction and concern about their body’s form. Body image can be defined as individuals’ experience of their body. The prevalence of depression in Iranian pregnant women is between 25% and 46.5%. Due to the prevalence of negative body image in pregnant women and great effects on mother, baby, mother-child relationship and even couple’s relationship and also given that psychological factors contribute greatly to this disorder, their prevention and treatment are very necessary. Training metacognitive skills and positive thinking strategies can modify dysfunctional beliefs, and lead to flexibility in the choice of appropriate behavioral and cognitive strategies and prevention of cognitive-attentional syndrome in response to triggers. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of training metacognitive skills and positive thinking strategies on reduction of negative body image. The statistical population included 200 pregnant women at health centers in Bushehr from which 80 women were selected randomly and assigned into two groups of experimental and control. The Oxford Happiness Questionnaire and multi-dimensional body-self relationships were used as research tools. In this experimental research, pretest–posttest was used for control group, and after training metacognitive skills and positive thinking strategies, data were analyzed by multivariate covariance analysis and the following results were obtained. There is a significant difference between training metacognitive skills and positive thinking strategies and reduction of negative body image in women in Bushehr (p<0.01); so, training metacognitive skills and positive thinking strategies are effective on the reduction of negative body image.

کلیدواژه ها:

Body Image ، Metacognitive Skills ، Positive Thinking Strategies ، Pregnant Women