Distinct temperament and character traits in patients with hyperemesis gravidarum

Abstract

Hyperemesis gravidarum (HG) is an extreme form of vomiting during pregnancy and is characterized with excessive vomiting and nausea and ketonuria, electrolyte imbalance, dehydration and severe nurtition deficiency. The etiology of HG is considered as multifactorial. Altough there is a great interest to HG in terms of psychiatric conditions, there have been limited numbers of studies that researched personality traits in patients with HG. In present study, we aimed to compare temperament and character traits between pregnant women with and without HG by Temperament and Character Inventory. 48 pregnant women with HG and 64 healthy pregnant women were included to study. The HG groups and control group were compared in terms of temperament and character traits and anxiety levels. The temperament scores of novelty seeking, harm avoidance and reward dependence were found to be similar between groups while the score of persistence was significantly lower in HG group compared with control group (p = .021). All character scores in HG group as cooperativeness, self-directedness, and self‐transcendence were significantly lower compared with control groups (respectively; p = .002, p = .018 and p = .029). The scores of STAI-1 was higher in HG group compared with control group (p = .027) whereas the score of STAI-2 was found to be similar between groups. Present study is the first to demonstrate different temperament and character traits in patients with HG. We argue that our results support the psychiatric background of HG; however further studies are needed to confirm our results.

摘要

妊娠剧吐（HG）是妊娠期呕吐的一种极端形式, 以过度呕吐、恶心和 酮尿、电解质失衡、脱水和严重的营养缺乏为特征。HG的病因被认为是多因素的。虽然人们对HG的精神状况有很大的兴趣, 但HG患者人格特征的研究却是有限的。本研究旨在通过气质和性格量表对HG孕妇和非HG孕妇的气质和性格特征进行比较。纳入了48例HG孕妇和64例健康孕妇, 比较HG组和对照组在气质、性格特征和焦虑水平方面的差异。HG组在寻求新奇、避免伤害和奖赏依赖3个维度的气质得分与对照组相似, 而在持久力得分上HG组显著低于对照组（p=0.021）。HG组的合作、自主能力、自我超越均显著低于对照组（分别为P=0.002、P=0.018和P=0.029）。HG组STAI-1评分明显高于对照组（p=0.027）, 而STAI-2评分两组相似（p>0.05）。本研究首次揭示了HG患者不同的气质和性格特征, 我们认为我们的结果支持HG的精神病学背景, 然而需要进一步的研究来证实我们的结果。

The Chinese abstracts are translated by Prof. Dr. Xiangyan Ruan and her team: Beijing Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100026, China.

Keywords:

• Hyperemesis
• personality
• character
• temperament

Disclosure statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest.