Mental status in pregnant women with brain injury sequels

Abstract

Objective: to investigate emotional disturbances in pregnant women with sequels of brain injury (BI).Patients and methods. A total of 47 pregnant women with a history of BI, who had been admitted to the Department of Obstetric Physiology, Moscow Regional Research Institute of Obstetrics and Gynecology, in 2013-2015, were examined. All the patients underwent a comprehensive neurological and neuropsychological examination using the Miltidimensional Fatigue Inventory-20 (MFI-20), the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), and the Spielberg-Hanin Situational and Personal Anxiety Scale.Results. The pregnant women with BI sequels were found to have emotional changes involving asthenic, anxiety, and depressive components. In these women, anxiety symptoms were most common (53.3%); psychoemotional disturbance and asthenic and depressive manifestations were identified in 23.4 and 14.9% of cases. This investigation first verified the structural (situational and personal) components of post-traumatic anxiety syndrome in the pregnant women. It revealed that an increased level of situational anxiety and physical symptoms of fatigue was observed in brain concussion sequels; and after brain contusion (BC), alarm acquired personality traits, asthenia was of a mental nature. In the pregnant women with BI sequels, depression was diagnosed only at the subclinical level and more often noted after BC (p=0.0473).

Keywords

• pregnant women
• brain injury
• brain injury sequels
• asthenia
• anxiety
• depression