New publication: Asthma, motherhood and mental health

You might have participated in our BLT-ID study, if so you might be interested in our recent publication. 

In this paper we aimed to examine the prevalence and severity of psychological distress of women with asthma in both the prenatal and postnatal periods, and to determine whether asthmatic women with and without mental health problems differ in self-management, medications knowledge, and asthma symptoms. We included data from 120 women with information about prenatal depression data obtained from medical records and through self report at 6 weeks postpartum. We found that twenty percent of our sample reported having a current mental health diagnosis, 14% reported currently receiving mental health care, while 47% reported having received mental health care in the past (and may/may not have received a diagnosis). More specifically, we found that overall women in our sample were more likely to score higher than expected on aggression, avoidant personality and attention deficit/hyperactivity scales. Poorer self-reported postnatal asthma control was strongly correlated with elevated somatic complaints, externalizing problems, antisocial personality problems, and greater withdrawal. However, prenatal spirometry or asthma severity and control were largely not associated with measures of psychopathology. These findings indicate that pregnant women with asthma frequently report issues with psychopathology during the prenatal and postnatal periods, and that the subjective perception of asthma control may be more related to psychopathology than objective asthma measures. However, due to sample bias, these findings are likely to be understated.

If you are interested in reading more about our research information processing information processing, click on Whalen, OM., Campbell, LE., Murphy VE., Lane, AE., gibson, PG., Mattew, J., Collison, A., Mallise, CA., Woolard, A., Karayanidis, F/. (2019) Observational study of mental health in asthmatic women during the prenatal and postnatal periods published in the Journal of Asthma.