The effect of counselling on nausea and vomiting in pregnancy in Turkey

The aim of this study was to assess the effects of follow-up counselling on the duration and severity of nausea and vomiting in pregnant women.

This study is quasi-experimental and included 62 pregnant women with nausea and vomiting. The group that received counselling was considered to be the experimental group, and the group that received a standard outpatient clinic service was the control group. Data were collected with a demographic data form, that is, the Nausea and Vomiting in Pregnancy Instrument and Pregnancy Unique Quantification of Emesis and Nausea. Significance tests of the differences between two mean values, the Mann-Whitney U test and survival analyses were used to test the hypotheses.

In pregnant women with mild or moderate nausea and vomiting, nausea and vomiting terminated in a significantly shorter time in the experimental group than in the control group (p <0.001), but this difference was not significant for pregnant women with severe nausea and vomiting (p > 0.05). In addition, the number of weekly telephone follow-ups in the experimental group was significantly smaller (p <0.001).

Counselling effectively reduced the duration and severity of mild or moderate nausea and vomiting during pregnancy. However, it did not affect the duration of severe nausea and vomiting during pregnancy.