An innovative online positive psychology training addressed to pregnant youth

Abstract

Pregnancy involves important changes for women of all ages. Specifically, young pregnant are faced with the difficult task of continuing their physical, emotional, and identity development while preparing for their role as parents. The aim of this work is to present the protocol of an innovative self-applied online positive psychology intervention addressed to pregnant youth. The purpose of this intervention is to enhance well-being, to help these women get through pregnancy in the best possible way. The intervention will be composed by four modules, for a total length of five weeks. Each module will be dedicated to the promotion of one positive dimension through the use of validated positive psychology exercises. We hypothesize that participants will report a significant higher level of happiness at post-test, and follow-up. Secondly, we hypothesize that participants will report a significant increase in positive affect, optimism, life satisfaction, social support, self-compassion, and psychological well-being, and a reduction in depression, anxiety, and negative affect at post-test and follow-up. Tertiary study objective is to examine if particular subgroups (in term of ages, different week of pregnancy, relationship status, unwanted/wanted pregnancy, and different personality profile) will benefit differently than others from the training.