AN ESTIMATION OF PSYCHIATRIC SYMPTOMS IN PREGNANT FEMALES ATTENDING ANTENATAL CLINIC IN TUTH
ABSTRACT
Background: Antenatal psychiatric illness has been reported to be affecting 6-40% of pregnant females. Psychiatric caseness during pregnancy not only affects the mother but also affects the health and development of the child. Various factors have been found to be associated to with psychiatric caseness in different cultural and social settings.
Objective: To estimate the presence of psychiatric caseness in pregnant population and find its socio-demographic correlates.
Methods: This is a cross sectional study with a total of 300 sample collected within 6 months in antenatal clinic of obstetric OPD, TUTH using semi-structured proformacontaining socio-demographic particulars, marital history, obstetric history and SRQ-24 used to detect psychiatric caseness with the cutoff score of 11 or more being labeled as cases.
Results: 15% of the pregnant women could be labeled as psychiatric cases.Trimester, complication during this pregnancy and family history of medical illness showed statistically significant association with psychiatric caseness.
Conclusion: As 15% of pregnant ANC attendees were found to be having psychiatric illness, it can be recommended that pregnant females be routinely screened for the possibility of psychiatric caseness and even more so if the factors that have been listed above are present in the history.
Key words: pregnancy, psychiatric caseness, ANC, antenatal, SRQ
Author's Name: Dr. Jaya Regmee