Perceived Social Support, Stress, and Coping After Miscarriage Among Women in Saudi Arabia: A Cross-Sectional Study

Miscarriage is a tragic experience that many women experience. A lack of social support, high stress, and inadequate coping mechanisms can affect their psychological well-being after a miscarriage.

The aim of this study is to examine the correlation between social support, stress, and coping among women who had a miscarriage in Saudi Arabia, 2024.

This study was an online descriptive cross-sectional, convenience sampling involving Saudi women without a history of psychiatric disorders and who experienced miscarriages within the last two years. We used social media for recruitment and Google Forms for data collection. The data were collected by 3 scales: Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), and the Brief-COPE, an abbreviated version of the Coping Orientation to Problems Experienced inventory. Data were analyzed using Pearson correlations, multiple linear regression, and mediation modeling via Hayes' PROCESS macro.

This study included 270 women. Correlation analysis revealed that social support significantly fostered problem-focused (r =0.237) and emotion-focused (r =0.268) strategies but had no significant relationship with avoidant coping. Regression analysis identified avoidant coping as the strongest predictor of perceived stress (β= 0.19, p =0.002). Furthermore, mediation modelling indicated that the relationship between social support and stress was fully mediated through adaptive coping strategies, with no significant direct effect between support and stress found in the final model.

Social support serves as a critical resource that protects women following a miscarriage by promoting adaptive coping mechanisms rather than directly reducing stress. So, interventions should focus on strengthening support networks and encouraging active, problem-solving-oriented strategies to improve psychological recovery and long-term well-being.