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Self-esteem of pregnant substance abusers
P G Higgins1, D H Clough, C Wallerstedt
1College of Nursing, University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, Albuquerqe, NM, USA.
Problem:
To explore patterns and levels of self-esteem of pregnant substance abusers.
Methods:
A descriptive prospective study to describe the self-esteem of pregnant substance abusers. Subjects (N = 31) were abusing and dependent on three or more legal and/or illegal substances. Subjects were asked one open-ended question regarding their self-esteem, then the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Inventory (RSI) was administered.
Findings:
Subjects gave 46 responses to the open-ended question. Overall, they used a single word to describe self-esteem. The most frequent response on the RSI was "low" for self-esteem, 23 subjects used positive terms, 20 used negative terms, and 3 reported a neutral term. The RSI confirmed the aspects of low self-esteem.
Conclusions & Implications For Nursing:
Problems with low self-esteem were evident. Intervention strategies need to be developed to increase self-esteem in pregnant substance abusers.