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A follow‐up study of post partum illness, 1946‐1978
Author(s) -
Davidson J.,
Robertson E.
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
acta psychiatrica scandinavica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.849
H-Index - 146
eISSN - 1600-0447
pISSN - 0001-690X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0447.1985.tb05057.x
Subject(s) - depression (economics) , schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , psychiatry , bipolar disorder , post partum , bipolar illness , psychology , childbirth , incidence (geometry) , pregnancy , borderline personality disorder , medicine , cognition , genetics , physics , biology , optics , economics , mania , macroeconomics
Eighty‐two patients, who were treated for post partum illness between 1946 and 1971, were identified and followed up. Diagnostically, the sample comprised unipolar depression (52%), bipolar disorder (18%), schizophrenia (16 %), abnormal personality with depression (8 %), organic disorder (2%), and obsessional state with depression and paranoid disorder (1% each). The overall prognosis was good, except for schizophrenia, in which more than 50 % of patients had chronic disability. Further childbirth intensified, and caused deterioration of, the underlying schizophrenia process. Following an initial illness in the puerperium, the probability of a recurrent affective illness was 43 % for unipolar and 66 % for bipolar disorder. The risk of developing another post partum illness varied from 1 in 3 to 1 in 5 pregnancies. Five percent of the sample ultimately committed suicide, and the probable incidence of infanticide was 4 %.