Mood and cognition in pregnant workers

Thirty-eight working women, in their late second trimester or early third trimester of pregnancy, volunteered to fill out the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire and the UWIST Mood Adjective Checklist. In addition they provided information on the number of children they already had, the nature of their...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied ergonomics 1998-10, Vol.29 (5), p.377-381
Main Authors: Morris, Neil, Toms, Margaret, Easthope, Yvette, Biddulph, Julie
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Affect
Arousal
Biological and medical sciences
Cognition
Cognition & reasoning
Emotions
Ergonomics. Human factors
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
mood
Occupational Health
Occupational psychology
Pregnancy
Pregnancy - psychology
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Questionnaires
Women, Working
Workers
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Thirty-eight working women, in their late second trimester or early third trimester of pregnancy, volunteered to fill out the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire and the UWIST Mood Adjective Checklist. In addition they provided information on the number of children they already had, the nature of their employment and their education level. The latter information was used to select a match for each pregnant worker from a larger sample of non-pregnant female workers. The results revealed no differences in the level of cognitive failures between the two groups. However, CFQ score was a better predictor of mood in the pregnant subjects, suggesting mood changes may be more closely related to perceived cognitive competency during pregnancy. The implications of this are discussed. With respect to mood sub-scales, non-pregnant workers scored higher on Energetic Arousal than pregnant workers. There were no differences on other mood sub-scales. It is argued that the cognitive efficiency of workers is not compromised by pregnancy but steps should be taken to ensure that work load is adjusted to take account of the self-reported reduced arousal that may arise.
ISSN:0003-6870
1872-9126
DOI:10.1016/S0003-6870(97)00070-7