Abstract â–¡ 134

Background: With increasing awareness of SIDS in the general public outpatient clinics are confronted with a specific psychological problem: Many parents of newborns suffer from SIDS-related anxiety. In order to help them cope with these fears we offer information, counselling, polysomnography, resuscitation instruction, homemonitoring and/or psychological support.

With this study we wanted to answer three questions:

  1. 1

    Which factors increase SIDS-related anxiety in parents?

  2. 2

    Are there special personality characteristics of parents consulting our outpatient clinic?

  3. 3

    Do the interventions we offer meet the needs of parents and reduce their anxiety?

Patients and methods: To answer the first question we took the history of 169 parents and compared their answers to data of a large study (n = 7870) on risk factors during pregnancy. To answer questions 2 and 3 we handed out personality and anxiety questionnaires (TPF, STAI) to 50 parents who came to our SIDS outpatient clinic and to 50 parents of a control group.

Results: In the first part of our study we found the mean age of the mothers to be higher and smoking to be less frequent during pregnancy. There were less complications during pregnancy but more perinatal complications (birth before 34th week of gestation, birth weight < 1500g). 58% of the parents suffered from SIDS-related anxiety, further 20.5% from severe SIDS-related anxiety. Anxiety correlated significantly with preceding complications in pregnancy (OR 2.19) and previous loss of a child (OR 2.95).

Answering question 2 there were no significant differences in the personality of parents at our outpatient clinic compared to other parents. However, the former felt a significant decrease of their anxiety due to our counselling. Sensitizers and repressers were distributed equally among the two groups. They showed typical characteristics, i.e. repressers are more optimistic, emphatic and self-reliant than sensitizers and less inclined to brood.

Conclusion: In order to meet parents' need for help to cope with their SIDS-related anxiety the most important factor is to take them seriously, to offer personal counselling and conversation, and in specific cases even psychological or psychotherapeutic support.