الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Pregnancy within the medical system, and their feelings throughout the whole period time
passed till diagnosis was confirmed.
3. A self-administered questionnaire for providers. It included their personal and
professional background data, availability of guidelines regarding providing
informed choice and obtaining informed consent for routine ultrasound during
pregnancy, receiving training on communicating results to patients, and views on
implementing informed choice for ultrasound screening.
Data analysis:
Quantitative data were collected from structured questions and were analyzed using
SPSS program version 16 (PASW) by the researcher. Semi-structured interviews were
recorded and transcripted then analysed through thematic analysis.
The main results of the study are summarized as follows:
1. Most participants (91%) confirmed the importance of ultrasound examination
during pregnancy with many different reasons. The most common reasons
mentioned were: to check fetus wellbeing (88%), diagnose any complication
(74%), know baby’s sex (57%), and determine how delivery will be (31%).
Nine percent of participants didn’t know the importance of ultrasound
examination during pregnancy.
2. Most women didn’t receive any information about ultrasound examination during
pregnancy (89%). One participant received information from a brochure in an
obstetrics and gynecology clinic. Only few participants (5%) felt need for more
information about ultrasound examination.
3. Most women didn’t know whether ultrasound examination had any
contraindication with pregnancy (79%), while 21% of participants said that there
was not any contraindication to have ultrasound examination during pregnancy.
4. Most women (89%) didn’t feel any worries or fears before ultrasound
examination. Only 11% of participants mentioned some worries and fears,
mostly concerned with baby’s death or complications. None of participants was
asked about their choice to do ultrasound examination or not. Sixty five percent
of participants went regularly to obstetric clinic to have their ultrasound
examination.
5. Women who received unexpected results used a group of coping strategies to
face their problem. These coping strategies were divided into three main
categories: active, avoidant, and passive. Three active coping strategies were
used frequently: problem solving, emotional expression and social support (96%,
94% and 95% respectively), while just around half of participants (46%) used
cognitive restructuring. All participants used resignation as avoidant coping
strategy while most of them used distraction (97%) and wishful thinking (97%).
The majority of women (60%) coped with their problem by social withdrawal.
On the contrary, negative coping strategies were limitedly used. Thirty seven
percent of participants had self-criticism and twenty percent of them used to
blame others.is usually associated with high expectations and joy for most women, but
to some, it is a journey to an unknown destination and it may be accompanied by varying
degree of anxiety state. The cause of this anxiety may be due to the concern of the
expectant mothers about the viability of the pregnancy at all stages and it is especially
worsened in first timers. One of the strategies employed to reduce this anxiety state is
antenatal ultrasound scan. In ultrasound scan examination, professionals expect that this
routine screening complement their clinical examination with objective information that
cannot be detected through clinical means and also to monitor the progress of pregnancy.
For parents and particularly the mother, they expect to be informed about the baby’s health
and general wellbeing with hidden fear to discover any anomaly or abnormality that
disturbs their happiness to anticipate the arrival of the baby.
This study aimed to study pregnant women’s experience with unexpected ultrasound
scan results, to determine whether women were sufficiently informed about why and how
the examination was performed, and to describe women’s thoughts, feelings, and reactions
after undergoing routine ultrasound examination with an unexpected fetal diagnosis.
Study settings:
The study was conducted in:
a. The Three Dimension Ultrasound unit (3-D) in the ”University Maternity
Hospital” in Alexandria (El-shatby).
b. The 3-D unit linked to the antenatal care clinic in ”Alexandria Regional Centre
for Women’s Health and Development”.
Study design and population:
Mixed study involving quantitative and qualitative approaches were used. The target
population were pregnant women (20–32 weeks of gestation) who were informed during
their routine antenatal ultrasound screening that they would get foetuses with congenital
anomalies. Hundred women were recruited during their stay in the waiting room and
women of the subsample (n=20) were interviewed in the patient ward. Another small
sample of physicians (n=30) performing ultrasound examination in the pre mentioned
settings were taken.
Data collection:
Data were collected through:
1. Structured interview: all participants were subjected to it. It involved; sociodemographic
data, obstetric profile, knowledge and perception of ultrasound,
informed choice, informed consent, and their coping strategies.
2. Semi-structured interview was conducted to sub-sample of women discussing
their experience on receiving the unexpected diagnosis; the initial disclosure,
their immediate emotional responses, their perceptions of setting and responses