Maternal anxiety scores correlated with childbirth perineal trauma – preliminary data of a cohort study.

Introduction. It is well known that severe obstetric lacerations are associated with anxiety disorders or even with postpartum depression among women. Very few studies investigated the levels of intrapartum anxiety caused by the eventuality of childbirth perineal trauma. This study aimed to evaluate maternal anxiety scores, intrapartum or during the first two hours postpartum, in different patient groups. Methodology. In March 2022, 44 consecutive primiparous women completed an anxiety visual scale, from 1 to 10, intrapartum or during the first two hours postpartum, reflecting their anxiety associated with obstetric lacerations. Six to 18 months postpartum, they will complete an International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire Vaginal Symptoms Module (ICIQ-VS), a standardized questionnaire to quantify the mid-term impact of perineal lacerations on vaginal symptoms, prolapse symptoms, sexual problems and quality of life. Moreover, correlations between the anxiety scores and ICIQ-VS scores will be sought. Results. GraphPad Prism 8 was used for statistical analysis. Mann-Whitney test was used for comparisons among groups and Pearson coefficient was used for correlations. The women reported significantly higher anxiety scores correlated with childbirth perineal trauma during labor, compared to immediate postpartum (p=0.0008). Women receiving epidural analgesia reported higher anxiety scores compared to women without epidural, but the difference of scores did not reach the statistical significance (p=0.142). No statistically significant correlation was found between the age or Body Mass Index (BMI) of the included women and the reported anxiety scores (p=0.142 and p=0.494, respectively). Conclusions. Anxiety correlated with childbirth trauma is significantly higher during labor compared to the postpartum period in primiparous women. Patients with epidural analgesia did not report significantly different anxiety scores compared to patients without analgesia. In addition, demographic or anthropometric factors, such as age or BMI, did not significantly correlate with the anxiety scores in primiparous women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]