[Peripartum psychiatric disorders--support through men? A first approach]

Abstract

We investigated the partners of 27 women with pre- or postpartal psychiatric disorders. All women were treated as inpatients at a mother-child unit after delivery. The men's behaviour as partners and fathers was rated in a categorical-qualitative way. We found that nearly one third of the men can be described as "supportive". This finding strongly correlates with the subjective experience of the corresponding wives. In the subgroup of women already suffering from prepartal psychiatric disorders before delivery, the majority of the men were rated and experienced as "non-supportive". Using the standardised Operationalised Psychodynamic Diagnostic questionnaire (OPD),we describe the personality structure of,support-ing" men and some resulting therapeutic consequences in "non-supporting" cases. In addition,we found a remarkable reduction in the length of hospital stay in the families with supporting men.