The Moderating Effect of Self-Efficacy on Pregnancy Stress and Smartphone Addiction of Pregnant Women in Late Pregnancy: A Longitudinal Study

Purpose: We aimed to understand the current situation of smartphone addiction in pregnant women, and explored the moderating effect of self-efficacy between pregnancy stress and smartphone addiction.

Patients and methods: This study adopted a longitudinal design to collect pregnant women from the obstetrics and gynecology department of a tertiary hospital in Shenyang in 2020 from early pregnancy (T1) to their late pregnancy (T2). A total of 342 questionnaires were collected, including the Smartphone Addiction Scale-Short Version (SAS-SV), the Pregnancy Pressure Scale (PPS), and the Chinese version of the General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES). Multiple hierarchical regression and simple slope test were used to test the moderating effect of self-efficacy.

Results: Smartphone addiction in T2 (44.74) was more sever than in T1 (33.11). The interaction item of T1 pregnancy stress and T2 self-efficacy was positively correlated with smartphone addiction (β=0.205, P<0.01) and explained an additional 3.2% variance (ΔR²=0.032, P<0.01). The influence of pregnancy stress on smartphone addiction was gradually decreased in the low, mean, and high groups of self-efficacy.

Conclusion: Smartphone addiction in late pregnancy was more severe than that in early pregnancy, possibly due to increased pregnancy stress. The self-efficacy of pregnant women could reduce the impact of pregnancy stress on smartphone addiction. Medical staff can alleviate the bad behavior by improving their self-efficacy.