As the Principal Investigator, Asuman Büyükcan Tetik, member of Sabancı University Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS), has received a grant within the TÜBİTAK 2519 COST Working Group Support Program for a 3-year project entitled " Pregnancy loss: Social perception, partners’ perceptions of each other’s grief, and the change in marital quality". The project will contribute to the aims and research of the COST Action "CA18211: Perinatal Mental Health and Birth-Related Trauma: Maximizing Best Practice and Optimal Outcomes".
Talking about the goals of the project, Asuman Büyükcan Tetik said the following: Although it is reported in the literature that the negative psychological consequences of pregnancy loss (e.g., grief, depressive symptoms) are generally underestimated and ignored by society, there are limited studies that tested this assumption. Another emphasized social perception is that pregnancy loss is seen as a mother-specific experience, and the loss of the father is mainly ignored. The first original contribution of this proposed project is the empirical investigation of the social perception of pregnancy loss in Turkey. The second contribution is evaluating the accuracy and bias levels in the partners’ perceptions of each other’s grief level after pregnancy loss. We will investigate whether mothers and fathers can accurately understand each other’s grief levels after pregnancy loss and the factors affecting their bias levels. The third contribution is examining the longitudinal change in the bereaved couples’ marital quality multidimensionally (e.g., intimacy, conflict). We will detect the couples whose relationship quality changes positively or negatively over time and the predictors of these changes.”