Psychiatric Symptoms, Posttraumatic Growth, and Life Satisfaction Among Parents of Seriously Ill Infants: A Prospective Case-Controlled Study

Abstract

We evaluated psychiatric symptoms, posttraumatic growth, and life satisfaction among the parents (n = 34) of newborns (n = 17) requiring therapeutic hypothermia or urgent surgery (interest group). Our control group included 60 parents of healthy newborns (n = 30). The first surveys were completed soon after diagnosis or delivery and the follow-up surveys 1 year later (participation rate 88% in the interest group and 70% in the control group). General stress was common in both groups but was more prevalent in the interest group as were depressive symptoms, too. Anxiety was more common in the interest group, although it showed a decrease from the baseline in both groups. Life satisfaction had an inverse correlation with all measures of psychiatric symptoms, and it was lower in the interest group in the early stage, but similar at 12 months due to the slight decline in the control group. Mothers in the interest group had more anxiety and depressive symptoms than fathers in the early stage. Mothers had more traumatic distress than fathers at both time points. Half of the parents experienced substantial posttraumatic growth at 12 months. In conclusion, the serious illness of an infant substantially affects the well-being of the parents in the early stages of illness and one year after the illness.

Keywords: Anomaly; Asphyxia; Infant; Parent; Psychiatric symptoms; Resilience.

Fig. 1

Flow chart for the study. The questionnaires were the 4-item Life Satisfaction Scale (LS-4), the Perceived Stress Scale-14 (PSS-14), the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), the Beck Depression Inventory—Second Edition (BDI-II), the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), the Impact of Event Scale–Revised (IES-R), and the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI)