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The impact of severe preeclampsia on maternal quality of life

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Abstract

Purpose

Preeclampsia (PE) is a serious life event that can change women’s psychological profile. The aim of this study was to evaluate the physical and mental health-related quality of life (HR-QoL) in women after PE and the impact of contributing factors.

Methods

Ninety-five women who had suffered from PE answered the Short-Form-12 Health Survey on general state of health. Comparison was made with the reference values and among the study cohorts, namely mild (14.7 %), severe (74.7 %) and superimposed PE (10.5 %). Medical parameters were evaluated as additional factors, and age served as covariate.

Results

Quality of mental life was significantly worse in all patients (p < 0.01), especially in those after severe PE (p < 0.01) compared to the reference range. These women demonstrated significantly worse results than those affected by the mild form (p = 0.03). Women who had had superimposed PE were neither physically nor mentally impaired compared to the standard population values (p = 0.94 and p = 0.90, respectively). After controlling for medical parameters and age, differences remained statistically significant. Multiparous women scored significantly worse on the mental scale than primiparous (p = 0.02), and pregnant women scored significantly worse than non-pregnant women on the physical level (p = 0.04).

Conclusions

This study shows that women who have suffered from severe PE are substantially reduced in their mental quality of life. An extensive medical care including HR-QoL parameters might improve pregnancy outcome.

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Abbreviations

HR-QoL:

Health-related quality of life

PE:

Preeclampsia

SF-12:

German SF-12 Short-Form Health Survey

WHO:

World Health Organization

HELLP syndrome:

Haemolysis, elevated liver enzymes, low platelets syndrome

PCS, MCS:

Physical and mental component summary scores

BP:

Blood pressure

ICU:

Intensive care unit

M:

Mean

SD:

Standard deviation

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Fedor Daghofer, PhD, for the statistical analysis and Andrew Peaston, B.Sc., for language editing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Medical University of Graz, Auenbruggerplatz 14, 8036, Graz, Austria

    Christina Stern, Eva Mautner, Maria Deutsch, Uwe Lang & Mila Cervar-Zivkovic

  2. University Clinic of Medical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Research Unit of Behavioural Medicine, Health Psychology and Empirical Psychosomatics, Medical University of Graz, Roseggerweg 50, 8036, Graz, Austria

    Eva-Maria Trapp

Authors
  1. Christina Stern
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  2. Eva-Maria Trapp
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  3. Eva Mautner
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  4. Maria Deutsch
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  6. Mila Cervar-Zivkovic
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christina Stern.

Additional information

Stern Christina and Trapp Eva-Maria have contributed equally to this article.

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Stern, C., Trapp, EM., Mautner, E. et al. The impact of severe preeclampsia on maternal quality of life. Qual Life Res 23, 1019–1026 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-013-0525-3

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