Conference Proceedings - School of Nursing & Midwifery - Trinity ...

School of Nursing & Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin: 8 th Annual Interdisciplinary Research Conference
Transforming Healthcare Through Research, Education & Technology: 7 th – 9 th November 2007
Conference Proceedings
Discussion
Assessment of the Incidence of Physical and Psychological in
Experimental and Control Groups
This section attempts to address deficits evident with some previous
studies that only focus on the incidence of physical symptoms but
not psychological ones. While many studies have reported the
syndrome’s symptom incidence, few offer psychosocial
interpretations for their findings. Furthermore, many investigations
fail to make a comparison of symptom incidence between expectant
and non-expectant men using experimental approaches. Instead
they use self-selected groups of men with pregnancy-related
symptoms whose incidence is often descriptively presented and
analysed without comparison to those in the general population.
These are some of the omissions and limitations which this study
attempts to address.
In keeping with the first study objective, four groups of 11 physical
symptoms were identified as having a higher incidence in the
experimental group and are most prominently associated with the
Couvade syndrome. The first group included gastrointestinal
symptoms: (“stomach pains”, “stomach distension”, “and vomiting
“and” appetite disturbances”) all of which are reported by others.
The second group comprised of genitourinary symptoms: (“painful
miturition” and polyurea”) also confirmed in previous studies by
Fawcett and York, (1987) and Conner and Denson, (1990). The next
group were dental symptoms: particularly (“toothache”) widely
reported in the literature by Trethowan and Conlon, (1965); Munroe
et al, (1973); Benvenuti et al, (1989); Conner and Denson, (1990)
and Sizaret et al, (1991). The final group were musculo-skeletal
symptoms: (“back pain” and “leg cramps”) also confirmed in
previous reports within the literature. Of notable interest was the
similarity with the findings of the qualitative phase of the study
where “stomach pains”, “vomiting”, “appetite disturbances” and
“back pain” were among the most commonly reported symptoms.
The groups of physical symptoms showing a similar incidence
between the study groups included six gastrointestinal, five
respiratory, two oral/dental and miscellaneous. The literature
corroborates that seven of these recorded in the study are less
commonly associated with the syndrome particularly “constipation”,
“diarrhoea”, “breathlessness”, “sore throat”, “nosebleeds”, “sore
gums”, “mouth ulcers”, “headache” and “fainting”.
There was also a higher incidence of ten psychological symptoms in
the experimental group commonly associated with the syndrome.
These included sleep disturbance: (“sleeping less than usual” and
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