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Prevalence in caregivers

What is prevalence of PTSD in parents and caregivers?

Prevalence represents the overall proportion of individuals in a population who have the disorder of interest. It is different from incidence, which represents only the new cases that have developed over a particular time period. Point prevalence is the proportion of individuals who have the disorder at a given point in time. Period prevalence is the proportion of individuals who have the disorder over specific time periods. Lifetime prevalence is the proportion of individuals who have ever had the disorder. Lifetime morbid risk also includes those who had the disorder but were deceased at the time of the survey.

What is the evidence for the prevalence of PTSD in parents and caregivers?

Moderate to low quality evidence found the prevalence of PTSD in mothers ranged from 23% to 49.1% within 3 months after the loss of an infant. Between 3 months and 12 months after the loss, prevalence of PTSD ranged from 0.6% to 37%. By 18 years after the loss, prevalence of PTSD ranged from 3.3% to 15.2%. In fathers, prevalence of PTSD ranged from 5% to 8.4% between 7 weeks and 18 years after the loss of an infant.

Moderate quality evidence found the prevalence of PTSD in community samples of prenatal women is around 3.3%, and after birth, PTSD was around 4%. Rates were higher (around 18-19%) in high-risk samples of women who had difficult births or pregnancies or had babies with fetal anomalies.

The prevalence of PTSD in caregivers of people in intensive care was between 14% and 81% during the ICU stay. It was between 3% and 62% after discharge from the ICU. The prevalence of PTSD in parents of children with cancer is around 26%.

August 2021

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Last updated at: 4:11 am, 8th October 2021
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