Study of temperament and character in pregnant and lactating women: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background Personality is the dynamic organization within an individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his or her unique adjustment to the environment; it has a direct effect on mental disorders either etiological or phenomenological or prognostic. Aim This study aims to determine the presence of clinically significant psychiatric morbidity among pregnant and lactating women and to explore the effects and impacts of their temperament and characters on these outcomes. Participants and methods One hundred and five women attending the obstetric outpatient clinic at Ain Shams University Hospitals were recruited into this study. They were assessed by The Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview, the Beck Depression Inventory, and Temperament and Character Inventory-Revised. Results The results showed that axis-I diagnosis was present, the most prevalent of which was adjustment disorder, mixed type (13 patients, 33.3% of psychiatric morbidity). Statistically significant lower eagerness of effort, more inactivity, lower ambition, more underachieving, lower perfectionism, lower purposefulness, more lack of goal-direction and higher compassion was found among females with psychiatric morbidity. Depressed patients showed statistically significantly higher scores on shyness with strangers, fatigability and asthenia, and total harm avoidance scores in comparison with nondepressed patients. © 2013 Institute of Psychiatry, Ain Shams University.