Depressive symptoms, perceived emotional intelligence and ways of coping among pregnant women

The purpose of this research is to analyze the relationship between PEI levels (perceived emotional intelligence), ways of coping and depressive symptoms during pregnancy. For this purpose, we used the Trait Meta-Mood Scale-24 which evaluates perceived emotional intelligence (Salovey, Mayer, Goldman, Turvey & Palafai, 1995), the Ways of Coping Scale (Ruiz, Hernández & Hernández, 2004), and adapted version of Edimburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (Cox, Holden & Sagovsky, 1987) in 668 pregnant women. Our results show that excessive emotional attention increases depressive symptoms, desiderative thoughts, resignation and self-blame. Increasing emotional Clarity and Repair reduces depressive symptoms and enables the use of more adaptative ways of coping during pregnancy.