Psychiatric Disorders in Pregnant Women: A hospital–based Study

Objective: To estimate the level of different psychiatric disorders in pregnant females and their associated factors. Methods: The current study was carried out at obstetrics and gynecology outpatient clinics, Mansoura University Hospitals, Mansoura, Egypt during March 2023 to March 2024. A total number of 384 pregnant females who ful-filled the inclusion criteria were enrolled and investigated by using MINI international interview for presence of any psychiatric disorder. Results: our study showed that 45.8% of the studied women had one or more psychiatric disorders, 22.9% had dysthymia, 9.9% had generalized anxiety disorder,4.9% had major depressive episode, 3.4% had social phobia, 1.3% had major depressive episode with melancholic features, 0.3% had suicidality, manic disorder, hypoman-ic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), drug dependence non-alcohol and there was a correaltion be-tween presence of one or more psychiatric disorders and job of woman’s husband as 176 women had one or more psychiatric disorders, 37 of them whose husband were employee and 139 were manual workers (p=0.03) and number of gravidity as 13 women were primi-gravida,112 were second and third gravida and 51 were ≥4th gravida (p=0.005).There were independent predictor of presence of psychiatric disorders and gravidity (2-3) = 2.19 and gravidiy ≥4 = 3.16.There were no significant association between women having major depressive episode and the studied risk factors (p >0.05).There were significant asso-ciation between presence of generalized anxiety disorder and gestational age of the pregnant woman as 5 women were in first trimester, 11 women in the second trimes-ter , 22 women in the third trimester (P=0.037) and there were significant association between presence of gener-alized anxiety disorder and associated risk of pregnancy as 5 women had high risk pregnancy and 22 women had low risk pregnancy (P=0.002). There were significant association between presence of dysthymia and age of the pregnant women as there were no dysthymia below 20 years old, 81 women were between 20-35 years, 7 women were >35 years (p=0.002) and There were significant association between pres-ence of dysthymia and women’s work as 5 women were working and 83 women were housewives (p=0.039). Conclusion: By screening women for pres-ence of psychiatric disorders during pregnan-cy, we found that psychiatric disorders are common among pregnant women (45.8%) and screening during antenatal care (ANC) is so important to discover and give appropriate treatment early.