Association of Psychological Factors with Chance of Developing Preeclampsia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Preeclampsia is the third leading cause of maternal mortality in the world and the second most common cause of death in pregnant mothers in Iran. Psychosocial aspects have been recently considered as a risk factor for developing preeclampsia. The purpose of this study was to determine the association between psychological factors and the chance of developing preeclampsia.

This systematic review and meta-analysis was performed based on the studies conducted in the world. We searched seven databases )Irandoc, SID, Magiran, Iranmedex, PubMed, Scopus, Web of science, Cochrane, ISI, and Embace databases), by using keywords of psychological factors, stress, anxiety, depression, and preeclampsia to find relevant articles published between 2008- 2018. Data from relevant studies were extracted by two persons separately and evaluated by using the Stroop checklist. After extracting the required data, they were combined using a random model and the heterogeneity of the studies was evaluated by the I2 indices. STATA-11 software was used for data analysis.

In the present study 11 articles were analyzed. The total number of samples in the study was 658678. The chances of preeclampsia in individuals with stress, anxiety, depression, and those exposed to violence were estimated to be 1.21, 3.07, 3.04, and 2.37, respectively.

Considering the importance of preeclampsia in pregnancy and its impact on maternal and fetal health, basic measures should be taken to prevent it by identifying people at risk and the contributing factors, such as routine screening of psychological factors before and through the pregnancy semesters.