MOOD AND COGNITION IN PREGNANT WORKERS

Thirty-eight working women, in their late second trimester or early th ird trimester of pregnancy, volunteered to fill out the Cognitive Fail ures Questionnaire and the UWIST Mood Adjective Checklist, In addition they provided information on the number olf children they already had , the nature of their employment and their education level, The latter information was used to select a match for each pregnant worker from a larger sample of non-pregnant female workers, The results revealed n o differences in the level of cognitive failures between the two group s. However, CFQ score was a better predictor of mood in the pregnant s ubjects, suggesting mood changes may be more closely related to percei ved cognitive competency during pregnancy. The implications of this ar e discussed. With respect to mood sub-scales, non-pregnant workers sco red higher on Energetic Arousal than pregnant workers. There were no d ifferences on other mood sub-scales, It is argued that the cognitive e fficiency of workers is not compromised by pregnancy but steps should be taken to ensure that work load is adjusted to take account of the s elf-reported reduced arousal that may arise. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.