Long-term risk of mental health problems in women experiencing preterm birth: a longitudinal study of 29 mothers
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© 2013 misund et al.; licensee bio med central ltd. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
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Misund, A.R., Nerdrum, P., Bråten, S.L., Pripp, A.H. & Diseth, T.H. (2013). Long-term risk of mental health problems in women experiencing preterm birth: a longitudinal study of 29 mothers. Annals of General Psychiatry, 12(33), doi:10.1186/1744-859X-12-33 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1744-859X-12-33Sammendrag
Background: Several studies have reported significantly higher stress levels, both short and long terms, among
mothers giving preterm birth compared with mothers giving birth at term. Stress, however, is a psychological
phenomenon that may present as anxiety, depression and/or trauma reactions. In this study, the long-term mental
health outcomes and the prevalence of anxiety, depression and trauma reactions in women experiencing preterm
birth were explored. Interactional, main effect variables and predictors were identified.
Methods: Twenty-nine mothers of 35 premature children born before the 33rd week of pregnancy were assessed
within 2 weeks postpartum (T0), 2 weeks after hospitalization (T1), 6 months post-term (T2), and 18 months post-term
(T3). The standardized psychometric methods Impact of Event Scale (IES), General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) and
State Anxiety Inventory (STAI-X1) assessed the maternal mental health outcomes.
Results: The maternal mental health problems except state anxiety decreased from T0 to T1, but remained high and
stable at T3. The prevalence of posttraumatic stress reactions (PTSR) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at T0 and
T3 was 52% and 23%, respectively. We identified the time period between T0 and T1 to have a significant main effect
on mental health outcomes. The predictors of higher levels of mental health problems were preeclampsia, previous
psychological treatment, age, trait anxiety and infant's postnatal intraventricular haemorrhage. Bleeding in pregnancy
predicted lower levels of mental health problems.
Conclusions: The prevalence of maternal mental health problems remained high, emphasizing the importance of
effective interventions