Review of diagnosis and treatment of pregnant psychiatric patients in a state hospital

Background: Because of the physiological changes during pregnancy there are changes of pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic characteristics, and there are differences in the treatment of psychiatric disorders in this period.

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the sociodemographical features, diagnoses, and treatments of 20 pregnant psychiatric inpatients that were hospitalized between August 2010 and August 2011.

Method: The sociodemographical features, diagnoses, and treatments of the patients were evaluated retrospectively.

Results: The percentages of diagnoses of the patients were as follows: schizophrenia 27.3%, bipolar affective disorder manic episode 22.7%, bipolar affective disorder depressive episode 9.1%, unipolar depression 27.4%, and obsessive compulsive disorder, dissociative disorder, and schizoaffective disorder, each 4.5%. When the treatments of the patients were evaluated according to their diagnosis we found that 13.6% of schizophrenia patients were treated with ECT, 9.09% with haloperidol and 4.5% with atypical antipsychotics; the patients with bipolar depression were treated with mood stabilizers and ECT plus mood stabilizers at the same rate of 4.5%; 18.1% of the patients with mania were treated with ECT plus haloperidol; and of the unipolar depressed patients 13.6% were treated with psychotherapy and 9.09% with ECT and haloperidol.

Conclusion: ECT was used commonly as a treatment option in our patient group. ECT treatment was added onto haloperidol treatment in severe cases. This treatment is consistent with the recommendations of the APA and with those in the literature.