A Comparative Study of Work Stress among Working Females Getting Paid and Working Women Unpaid (Housewives) During Pregnancy

INTRODUCTION: The potential impact of employment on pregnancy is an important issue as several occupational factors have been reported to be associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes through increased work stress. The current study was undertaken among pregnant women to understand the difference in pregnancy-related stress among pregnant working women getting paid (WWP) and working women unpaid (WWU) (housewives) and to assess workplace stress among working WWP. METHODS: A total of 426 study participants which included 213 participants in each group were recruited from a tertiary care hospital in Chennai. All the study participants were interviewed using an A–Z scale to understand pregnancy-related stress while WWP were also interviewed using Workplace Stress Questionnaire (WSQ). RESULTS: It was observed that the mean score of WWP was significantly higher than the mean scores of WWU (t = 94.63; df = 1, P = 0.000). Those WWP who were working for >8 h daily had higher scores as compared to those working for ≤8 h. CONCLUSION: The study shows that the WWP had work stress in addition to background pregnancy-related stress.