Nouvelles normalités Nouvelles pathologies Nouvelles ... - Psynem

6° 6éme Congresso Congrès Européen Europeo de di Psicopatologia Psychopathologie dell’Infanzia de l’Enfance e et dell’Adolescenza
de l’Adolescence
Nuove Nouvelles normalità normalités Nuove Nouvelles patologie pathologies Nuove pratiche Nouvelles pratiques
FRIDAY, May 6 WORKSHOPS
Workshop 14 Dal prenatale alla diagnosi precoce
QUALITY OF LIFE, ANXIOUS AND DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMATOLOGY IN THE SECOND
TRIMESTER OF PREGNANCY FOLLOWING ASSISTED REPRODUCTION
Leonardo De Pascalis, Marcella Paterlini, Sara Reverberi,
Fiorella Monti, Francesca Agostini, Giovanni Battista La Sala
Dipartimento di Psicologia, Università di Bologna (Bologna - IT)
Introduction
The psychological impact of infertility has been
widely confirmed and many manifestations of
psychological disorders in infertile women have
been reported, such as frustration, anger, lowered
self-perception, interpersonal difficulties,
anxiety, and depression (Beaurepaire et al.,
1994), especially among women (Beutel et al.,
1999).
Infertility has also been associated with
decrease QoL. The areas that seem to be most
affected are mental health, vitality, emotional
behaviour, psychological, environmental, physical
functioning and social functioning (Drosdzol
et al., 2008). Moreover, infertile women seem to
show stronger and more extensive impairment
of their QoL compared to infertile men (Ragni et
al., 2005).
Assisted reproductive techniques (ART) often
are the last chance for infertile couples to have
a child who sometimes arrives after years of
frustrating treatment failures, frequently accompanied
by high physical, emotional, and financial
costs. The aspects of ART that are stressful
to the patient are multifaceted and affect all
parts of life: marital, social, physical and emotional.
Higher pregnancy-related distress has
been found among women who have conceived
after ART, compared with women who have
conceived spontaneously (Hjelmstedt et al.
2003).
The aim of the present study was to investigate
quality of life, depressive and anxious
symptomatology during the second trimester of
pregnancy, comparing couples who conceived
through ART and couples who conceived spontaneously.
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In line with the literature we hypothesised a
lower quality of life and higher depressive and
anxious symptomatology in the ART couples,
especially in ART women.
Method
Sample
The sample for the present study included 112
couples: 45 ART couples and 67 non-ART couples,
all of Italian nationality to ensure comprehension
of the questionnaires.
Procedure
All couples were recruited at the Santa Maria
Nuova Hospital in Reggio Emilia, Italy; ART couples
were contacted by telephone at 16 weeks
of pregnancy, while non-ART couples were
recruited on the day of their morphological
sound scan: all couples were proposed participation
in the study, by a psychologist of the
research team who would explain them the purpose
and design of the study.
The couples who agreed to take part in the
study signed an informed consent and were
sent the questionnaires during the 20 th week of
gestation, with a letter requesting them to complete
and return them during the 22 nd week of
gestation using the stamped and addressed
envelope included with questionnaire booklets.
Instruments
The following questionnaires were chosen for
the present study:
A Socio-Demographic Questionnaire: 26
items used to investigate the main anagraphical
variables.
Short Form 36 (SF-36 - Ware et al., 1992): 36
items, divided into 8 subscales: “Physical Func-