Introduction: The incidence of psychiatric disorders including anxiety, phobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder and mood are higher during pregnancy and after child birth. Posttraumatic stress disorder is one of the anxiety disorders. Prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder after preeclampsia has been reported 28% in previous studies. Since in cases with preeclampsia often early termination of pregnancy by cesarean section is necessary, and according to the contradictory results in this field, this study was done to investigate posttraumatic stress disorder in women with preeclampsia in differentiation of childbirth.
Methods: This descriptive study was conducted on 100 pregnant women with preeclampsia admitted in governmental hospitals of Mashhad in 2011. Available sampling method was selected and cases were divided into three groups: vaginal delivery, elective cesarean delivery and emergency cesarean section. Posttraumatic stress disorder was compared between 3 groups. Posttraumatic stress disorder was measured by Prenatal posttraumatic stress questionnaire around childbirth and 6 weeks after delivery. Data were analyzed using SPSS software version 16 and chi-square and ANOVA tests. P value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant.
Results: The prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder in three groups was statistically significant (vaginal delivery 35.7%, elective cesarean delivery 0%, emergency cesarean section 15.8%). Posttraumatic stress disorder was more in vaginal delivery group and less in elective cesarean group (p=0.032). The mean score of posttraumatic stress disorder was not statistically significant in three groups (vaginal delivery 5.0±2.3, elective cesarean 4.1±0.4, emergency cesarean 4.6±2.8).
Conclusions: The prevalence and average of posttraumatic stress disorder was higher following vaginal delivery compared with elective and emergency cesarean. It is recommended to identify possible causes and take action to fix it.