Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T07:45:37.881Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

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 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Birtchnell, J. (1988) Depression and family relationships. A study of young, married women on a London housing estate. British Journal of Psychiatry, 153, 758769.Google Scholar
Brockington, I. F., Winokur, G. & Dean, C. (1982) Puerperal psychosis. In Motherhood and Mental Illness (eds Brockington, I. F. & Kumar, R.), pp. 3739. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Brown, G. W., Monck, E. M., Carstairs, G. M., et al (1962) Influences of family life on the course of schizophrenic illness. British Journal of Preventative and Social Medicine, 16, 5568.Google Scholar
Brown, G. W., Birley, J. L. T. & Wing, J. K. (1972) Influence of family life on the course of schizophrenic disorders: a replication. British Journal of Psychiatry, 121, 241258.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clare, A. W. & Cairns, V. (1978) Design, development and use of a standardized interview to assess social maladjustment and dysfunction in community studies. Psychological Medicine, 8, 589605.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Corney, R. H. & Clare, A. W. (1985) The construction, development and testing of a self-report questionnaire to identify social problems. Psychological Medicine, 15, 637649.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Davidson, J. & Robertson, E. (1985) A follow-up study of postpartum ilness, 1946–1978. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 71, 451457.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dean, C., Williams, J. R. & Brockington, I. F. (1989) Is puerperal psychosis the same as bipolar manic depressive disorder? A family study. Psychological Medicine, 19, 637647.Google Scholar
Endicott, J. & Spitzer, R. L. (1978) A diagnostic interview – the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry, 35, 837844.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eysenck, H. J. & Eysenck, S. B. G. (1975) Manual of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. London: Hodder and Stoughton.Google Scholar
Hand, D. J. (1981) Discrimination and Classification. Chichester: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Hooley, J. M., Orley, J. & Teasdale, J. D. (1986) Levels of expressed emotion and relapse in depressed patients. British Journal of Psychiatry, 148, 642647.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jacobs, B. (1943) Aetiological factors and reaction types in psychoses following childbirth. Journal of Mental Science, 89, 242256.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, R. (1902) Puerperal insanity. British Medical Journal, i, 579586.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kendell, R. E., Rennie, D., Clarke, J. A., et al (1981) The social and obstetric correlates of psychiatric admission in the puerperium. Psychological Medicine, 11, 341350.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kendell, R. E., Chalmers, J. C. & Platz, C. (1987) Epidemiology of puerperal psychosis. British Journal of Psychiatry, 150, 662673.Google Scholar
Leff, J. P., Kuipers, L., Berkowitz, R., et al (1982) A controlled trial of social intervention in the families of schizophrenic patients. British Journal of Psychiatry, 141, 121134.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leff, J. P., Wig, N. N., Bedi, H., et al (1990) Relatives' expressed emotion and the course of schizophrenia in Chandigarh. British Journal of Psychiatry, 156, 351356.Google Scholar
McCreadie, R. G. & Phillips, K. (1988) The Nithsdale schizophrenia survey. VII. Does relatives' high expressed emotion predict relapse? British Journal of Psychiatry, 152, 477481.Google Scholar
McCreadie, R. G. & Robinson, A. D. T. (1987) The Nithsdale schizophrenia survey. VI. Relatives' expressed emotion: prevalence, patterns and clinical assessment. British Journal of Psychiatry, 150, 640644.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
MacMillan, J. F., Gold, A., Crow, T. J., et al (1986) The North wick Park study of first episodes of schizophrenia: IV. Expressed emotion and relapse. British Journal of Psychiatry, 148, 133143.Google Scholar
Merikangas, K. R. (1984) Divorce and assortative mating for depression. American Journal of Psychiatry, 141, 7476.Google Scholar
Miklowitz, D. J., Goldstein, M. J., Nuechterlein, K. H., et al (1988) Family factors and the course of bipolar affective disorder. Archives of General Psychiatry, 45, 225231.Google Scholar
Parker, G., Johnston, P. & Hayward, L. (1988) Parental ‘expressed emotion’ as a predictor of schizophrenic relapse. Archives of General Psychiatry, 45, 806813.Google Scholar
Parker, G., Hayward, L. & Johnston, P. (1989) Factorial validity of the EE scales. Psychological Medicine, 19, 435446.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Peter, H. & Hand, P. (1988) Patterns of patient-spouse interaction in agoraphobics: assessment by Camberwell Family Interview (CFI) and impact on outcome of self-exposure treatment. In Panic and Phobias 2: Treatment and Variables Affecting Course and Outcome (eds Hand, I. & Wittchen, H.), pp. 240251. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reich, T., Rice, J., Andreason, N., et al (1980) A preliminary analysis of the segregation distribution of primary major depressive disorder. Psychological Bulletin, 16, 3436.Google ScholarPubMed
Schopf, J., Bryois, C., Jonquiere, M., et al (1984) On the nosology of severe psychiatric post-partum disorders. European Archives of Psychiatry and Neurological Sciences, 234, 5463.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Spitzer, R. L., Endicott, J. & Robins, E. (1978) Research Diagnostic Criteria: rationale and reliability. Archives of General Psychiatry, 35, 773782.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tetlow, C. (1955) Psychoses of childbearing. Journal of Mental Science, 101, 629639.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vaughn, C. E. & Leff, J. P. (1976) The influence of family and social factors on the course of psychiatric illness. British Journal of Psychiatry, 129, 125137.Google Scholar
Vaughn, C. E., Snyder, K. S., Jones, S., et al (1984) Family factors in schizophrenic relapse: replication in California of British research on expressed emotion. Archives of General Psychiatry, 41, 11691177.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weissman, M. M. & Myers, J. K. (1978) Affective disorders in a US urban community. The use of Research Diagnostic Criteria in an epidemiological survey. Archives of General Psychiatry, 35, 13041311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wing, J. K., Cooper, J. E. & Sartorius, N. (1974) The Measurement and Classification of Psychiatric Symptoms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.