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Women Whose Mental Illnesses Recur after Childbirth and Partners' Levels of Expressed Emotion During Late Pregnancy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

M. N. Marks
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry
A. Wieck
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry
A. Seymour
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry
S. A. Checkley
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry
R. Kumar*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, London
*
Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AF

Abstract

Expressed emotion (EE) in the partners of 25 pregnant women with a history of psychosis or severe depression and in 13 pregnant control subjects without any previous psychiatric disorder was assessed in the ninth month of pregnancy. At this time, no patient presented as a case according to RDC. Eleven subjects with a history of psychiatric disorder experienced a further episode of illness in the six months following delivery. Partners of women who became ill had made fewer critical and positive comments about their wives during the pregnancy than the partners of women who remained well. Poor self-rated social adjustment in the partners was also predictive of recurrence of illness after delivery.

Type
Papers
Copyright
Copyright © 1992 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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