Allana Munro1,2, Hilary MacCormick3,4, Atul Sabharwal5, Ronald B George6. 1. Department of Anesthesia, Pain Management and Perioperative Medicine, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada. ammunro@dal.ca. 2. Department of Women's & Obstetric Anesthesia, IWK Health Centre, 5850/5980 University Ave, Halifax, NS, B3K 6R8, Canada. ammunro@dal.ca. 3. Department of Anesthesia, Pain Management and Perioperative Medicine, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada. 4. Department of Women's & Obstetric Anesthesia, IWK Health Centre, 5850/5980 University Ave, Halifax, NS, B3K 6R8, Canada. 5. Dalhousie Medical School, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada. 6. Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Care, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.
Abstract
PURPOSE: This scoping review aimed to summarize the current literature on postpartum psychiatric disorders (e.g., postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, postpartum post-traumatic stress disorder) and the possible relationship of these disorders to the use of pharmacologic labour analgesia (e.g., epidural analgesia, nitrous oxide, parenteral opioids) to identify knowledge gaps that may aid in the planning of future research. SOURCES: PubMed, PsycINFO, CINAHL, and EMBASE were searched from inception to November 9, 2018 for studies that included both labour analgesia and the postpartum psychiatric disorders specified above. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Two reviewers assessed the studies and extracted the data. Of the 990 identified citations, 17 studies were included for analysis. Existing studies have small sample sizes and are observational cohorts in design. Patient psychiatric risk factors, method of delivery, and type of labour analgesia received were inconsistent among studies. Most studies relied on screening tests for diagnosing postpartum psychiatric illness and did not assess the impact of labour analgesia on postpartum psychiatric illness as the primary study objective. CONCLUSIONS: Future studies should correlate screen-positive findings with clinical diagnosis; consider adjusting the timing of screening to include the antepartum period, early postpartum, and late postpartum periods; and consider the degree of labour pain relief and the specific pharmacologic labour analgesia used when evaluating postpartum psychiatric disorders.
PURPOSE: This scoping review aimed to summarize the current literature on postpartum psychiatric disorders (e.g., postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, postpartum post-traumatic stress disorder) and the possible relationship of these disorders to the use of pharmacologic labour analgesia (e.g., epidural analgesia, nitrous oxide, parenteral opioids) to identify knowledge gaps that may aid in the planning of future research. SOURCES: PubMed, PsycINFO, CINAHL, and EMBASE were searched from inception to November 9, 2018 for studies that included both labour analgesia and the postpartum psychiatric disorders specified above. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Two reviewers assessed the studies and extracted the data. Of the 990 identified citations, 17 studies were included for analysis. Existing studies have small sample sizes and are observational cohorts in design. Patient psychiatric risk factors, method of delivery, and type of labour analgesia received were inconsistent among studies. Most studies relied on screening tests for diagnosing postpartum psychiatric illness and did not assess the impact of labour analgesia on postpartum psychiatric illness as the primary study objective. CONCLUSIONS: Future studies should correlate screen-positive findings with clinical diagnosis; consider adjusting the timing of screening to include the antepartum period, early postpartum, and late postpartum periods; and consider the degree of labour pain relief and the specific pharmacologic labour analgesia used when evaluating postpartum psychiatric disorders.