Obsessive-compulsive symptoms in pregnancy: Their relationship with obsessive beliefs and obsessive-compulsive personality traits.

Literature findings are limited and inconsistent on the relationship between obsessive beliefs and obsessive-compulsive symptoms (OCS) and to our knowledge no data are available in pregnant population. Additionally, an interesting field that has not been adequately studied is the relationship between obsessive-compulsive personality traits and OCS while there are no corresponding studies in perinatal period. The aims of the study were to examine the relationship between OCS presented in pregnancy and obsessive beliefs considered to underlie them as well as their association with obsessive-compulsive personality traits. 30 pregnant women with OCS, regardless of their underlying diagnosis, were recruited from a University Psychiatric Hospital and privately. They completed the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI), the Yale-Brown Obsessive- Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS), the Dysfunctional Beliefs Questionnaire-44 (OBQ-44), the Leyton Trait Scale and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). The main symptoms were aggression (73.3%), contamination (53.3%) obsessions and cleansing/washing (50%), checking (43.3%) compulsions. Pregnant women with obsessive-compulsive personality traits displayed symmetry/exactness obsessions (p=0.020) and cleansing/washing (p=0.011) compulsions as predominant types of OCS and greater severity of compulsions (p=0.049). The results of the logistic regression model suggest that obsessive beliefs of importance/control of thoughts and of responsibility/threat estimation predicted OCS while the belief of perfectionism/certainty did not predict any dimension of OCS. It is noteworthy that most observed relationships between obsessive beliefs and OCS remained even after controlling for variables of anxiety and depression, suggesting that obsessive beliefs have a specific relationship with OCS which is independent of other forms of psychopathology. Depressive symptoms comorbidity increased OCS severity, while in comorbidity with anxiety symptoms no difference in severity of OCS was found. Further research is needed to test our findings in larger and more diverse samples.

Quality of life and psychological symptoms in Greek postmenopausal women: association with hormone therapy.

Quality of life (QoL) in menopause is influenced by many parameters, including vasomotor symptoms, psychological status and culture. The aim of the present study was to examine the association of hormone therapy (HT) with QoL and psychological symptoms in Greek postmenopausal women. The study assessed 216 postmenopausal women (mean age 54.5 years) attending a university menopause clinic in Greece. Fifty-three were users of HT and 163 were not. QoL was evaluated by the Utian Quality of Life Scale (UQOL) and psychological symptoms were assessed by the Symptom Checklist-90-R (SCL-90-R). Women on HT were younger and more educated than women not using HT. Adjusting the analysis for the women's characteristics, HT users had better total UQOL scores than non-users (p < 0.05). Marital status and education had independent effects on QoL, with married and more educated women scoring higher (p < 0.05). Assessment of psychological symptomatology, after adjustment for sociodemographic variables across the different dimensions, revealed that HT users had better SCL-90-R scores than non-users for obsessionality, interpersonal sensitivity and for the general index (p < 0.05). Concluding, even though the impact of sociodemographic and lifestyle variables must be factored into the assessment of QoL, HT use is independently related to an improvement in the total score and in most domains of QoL, and has a significant positive effect on many aspects of psychological well-being in Greek postmenopausal women.