EFFECTIVENESS OF ART THERAPY UPON STRESS AMONG PREGNANT WOMEN IN A SELECTED COMMUNITY AREA (SOLADEVANAHALLI), BANGALORE

Stressisoneofthemostdistressingfactorsduringpregnancy.Thismaylead to high blood pressure among pregnant women known as pre-eclampsia. It can also result in preterm birth and having a low-birth weight infant. Thus, every pregnant woman should have the knowledge about stress during their pregnancy state and several methods on how to avoid stressduringtheirpregnancyandtobehealthyduringthecourse.

Objectives:i)Toassess the effectiveness of art therapy among pregnant women in a selected community ii) To assess theamountofstress amongpregnant womeniii)Tocomparethevaluesofpretestandposttest among pregnant women.

Methodology: Convenient sampling was used to identify the research samples. A total of 30 samples were selected and a pretest-post-test control group design was used. The Perceived stress scale was administered for assessing the stress among pregnant women after obtaining their baseline variables. Followed by pretestArt therapy was giventothe samples in a spanof 15days and post test was conducted tonotethe variations in thestress.

Results:Theresultsofthestudysuggestthatthereisadifferenceinthelevelsof stressfollowingtheintervention.Themeanvalueofpretestwasnotedtobe20.01whereasthe meanvalueofposttestwas14.4whichsuggestsdeclineinstresslevels.

Conclusion:Art therapy was determined as one of the effective measure in the reduction of stress among pregnant women thus the study was found to be an effective one.