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01-12-2009 | Original Contribution

Maternally focused worry

Authors: Jane Phillips, Louise Sharpe, Stephen Matthey, Margaret Charles

Published in: Archives of Women's Mental Health | Issue 6/2009

Abstract

Emerging evidence suggests that many women in the postnatal period experience clinically significant levels of anxiety but do not meet full diagnostic criteria for an existing anxiety disorder. In this study, 167 women with infants aged 2 weeks to 12 months were interviewed for current and lifetime history of depression and anxiety disorders using the SCID-I and completed a range of self-report measures measuring psychological risk factors and current depressive and anxiety symptomatology. Qualitative comments provided by women diagnosed with ADNOS (maternally focused worry) were analyzed and themes identified, and independent t-tests and chi-square tests were conducted to compare differences between these women and women with GAD. Results showed (1) there to be almost as many women who met criteria for ADNOS (maternally focused worry) as met criteria for GAD, and (2) that women with maternally focused worry were indistinguishable from women with GAD in terms of anxiety and depressive symptom severity, functional impairment and a range of risk factors. These results highlight the status of maternally focused worry as an under-recognized phenomenon and one in need of further clinical and research attention.

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Title: Maternally focused worry
Authors: Jane Phillips
Louise Sharpe
Stephen Matthey
Margaret Charles
Publication date: 01-12-2009
Publisher: Springer Vienna
Published in: Archives of Women's Mental Health / Issue 6/2009
Print ISSN: 1434-1816
Electronic ISSN: 1435-1102
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00737-009-0091-4

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