The Prevalence of Anxiety Disorders During Pregnancy and the Postpartum Period

Abstract

Objective-To estimate the prevalence of anxiety disorders in pregnant and postpartum women and identify predictors accounting for variability across estimates. Data Sources-An electronic search of PsycINFO and PubMed was conducted from inception until July 2016, without date or language restrictions, and supplemented by articles referenced in the obtained sources. A Boolean search phrase utilized a combination of keywords related to pregnancy, postpartum, prevalence, and specific anxiety disorders.Study Selection-Articles reporting the prevalence of one or more of eight common anxiety disorders in pregnant or postpartum women were included. A total of 2,613 records were retrieved, with 26 studies ultimately included. Data Extraction-Anxiety disorder prevalence and potential predictor variables (e.g., parity) were extracted from each study. A Bayesian multivariate modeling approach estimated the prevalence and between-study heterogeneity of each disorder and the prevalence of having one or more disorder.Results-Individual disorder prevalence estimates ranged from 1.1% for PTSD to 4.8% for specific phobia, with the prevalence of having at least one or more disorder estimated to be 20.7%

A Bayesian multivariate approach to estimating the prevalence of a superordinate category of disorders

“…The average number of disorders measured by a given study was 3.4; Figure depicts the percentage of participants diagnosed with at least one disorder as a function of the number of disorders measured. These studies represent a partial sample from a meta‐analysis of AD within peripartum populations (Fawcett, Fairbrother, Cox, White, & Fawcett, ). A partial sample was selected for illustration purposes as it allowed us to focus on the methodology itself rather than becoming lost in the details of the included articles; for this reason, it is important that the present analyses be used for demonstration purposes only.…”

Perinatal mental health: a review of progress and challenges

“…Recent systematic reviews report a pre‐valence of 15‐20% for antenatal and 10% for postnatal anxiety disorders 21,22 , with higher rates in LMIC versus HIC settings. Self‐reported anxiety symptoms are very common, and increase across the trimesters of pregnancy (with a mean prevalence of 25% in the third trimester) 21 .…”

Generalized and pregnancy-related anxiety prevalence and predictors among pregnant women attending primary health care in Qatar, 2018–2019

“…Recently, a meta-analysis published in 2019 showed that antenatal anxiety disorders affect 20.7% of pregnant women; Confidence Interval CI [16.7%–25.4%]. Fawcett et al. (2019) reported generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) to be one of the most prevalent perinatal disorders during pregnancy; other types of antenatal anxiety disorders were described, such as panic attacks, obsessive-compulsive disorder, acute stress disorder, specific phobia, and post-traumatic stress disorder.…”