Objectives: To predict acute psychological distress in pregnant women following detection of a fetal structural anomaly by ultrasonography, and to relate these findings to a comparison group.
Design: A prospective, observational study.
Setting: Tertiary referral centre for fetal medicine.
Population: One hundred and eighty pregnant women with a fetal structural anomaly detected by ultrasound (study group) and 111 with normal ultrasound findings (comparison group) were included within a week following sonographic examination after gestational age 12 weeks (inclusion period: May 2006 to February 2009).
Methods: Social dysfunction and health perception were assessed by the corresponding subscales of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28). Psychological distress was assessed using the Impact of Events Scale (IES-22), Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) and the anxiety and depression subscales of the GHQ-28. Fetal anomalies were classified according to severity and diagnostic or prognostic ambiguity at the time of assessment.
Main outcome measures: Social dysfunction, health perception and psychological distress (intrusion, avoidance, arousal, anxiety, depression).
Results: The least severe anomalies with no diagnostic or prognostic ambiguity induced the lowest levels of IES intrusive distress (P = 0.025). Women included after 22 weeks of gestation (24%) reported significantly higher GHQ distress than women included earlier in pregnancy (P = 0.003). The study group had significantly higher levels of psychosocial distress than the comparison group on all psychometric endpoints.
Conclusions: Psychological distress was predicted by gestational age at the time of assessment, severity of the fetal anomaly, and ambiguity concerning diagnosis or prognosis.