Prevalence of obsession and stress in mothers of infants with colic

Introduction: Infantile Colic with high Prevalence can have long-term adverse effects on the family and child and worsen the mental state of mothers.

Objective: Studying the prevalence of obsession and stress in mothers of infants with colic referred to the Pediatric Clinic of Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran from October 2018 to Summer 2020.

Methods: In this descriptive-analytical study, 117 mothers of infants with colic(according to the Wessel criteria) referred to the pediatric gastrointestinal clinics of Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran from October 2018 to summer 2020, were included in the study based on easy sampling method. The prepared questionnaires based on the Holmes-Rahe Stress Scale and Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale and the study related variables were distributed among the sample individuals. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS 19 software. Chi-square test was used to determine the relationship between qualitative variables and P value ≤ 0.05 was considered as a significant level. The required indicators and tables were prepared.

Results: Among mothers of infants with colic based on Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale, 64.1% of mothers showed very mild OCD, 24.8% showed relatively mild OCD, 7.7% had moderate OCD and 3.4% had severe OCD. In terms of the Holmes-Rahe Stress Scale, 29.1% of mothers were normal, 14.5% had moderate stress, 28.2% had high stress and 28.2% had severe stress. In this study, no significant relationship was observed between infant parameters of age at the time of visit, sex, weight (at the time of visitandat the time of delivery), birth rank, diet method, term or preterm and the mother's parameters of age, education, job, history of infants with colic, delivery type and place of residence with obsession and stress.

Conclusion: Based on the results of this study, most of the mothers of infants with colic presented high or severe stress, and small percentage of studied mothers had moderate to severe OCD. No significant relationship was observed between the studied infant's or mother's variables and obsession and stress of mothers of colic infants.

Keywords: Infantile; Colic; Obsession; Stress; Mother