Study Focuses on Pregnant African American Women
A study ran by Virginia Commonwealth University, Texas Tech University & Riverside Medical Group wanted to show the link between pregnant African American woman with stress and how it can be managed with guided imagery. The study was conducted with 72 women who were in their early 2nd trimester of pregnancy. The women were divided up into 2 different groups, one group used guided imagery over a 12 week period and the other half used usual care. Each of the groups were asked to donate 5 cc of blood in the beginning of the study, another 5 cc at the 8 week mark and another at the 12 week mark. On top of the blood monitoring, the participants were asked to complete a daily stress scale.
The study found that the participants who used guided imagery reported a lot less fatigue and anxiety levels than the group who used usual care at the 8 week mark but there wasn’t that big of a difference at the 12 week mark. The study also found that the corticotropin releasing hormone levels weren’t much different between the two different groups. The overall results have shown that guided imagery has an effective result in reducing stress, anxiety and fatigue among the pregnant African American women.