Psychosocial approach to pregnancy loss in primary health care

Abstract

Introduction: Pregnancy losses are common events in reproductive life. In view of the individual and professional difficulty of dealing with the mental suffering that they cause, we question the choice of technique, the regularity and the way of carrying out approaches that would be better suited to cope with this situation. Therefore, this clinical review aimed to assess the recent literature and seek the best scientific evidence about the psychosocial approach to these losses. Methods: Keywords determined by MeSH were used to select study titles in the databases PUBMED, ACCESSSS, BMJ, DYNAMED, EBM and LILACS. The inclusion criteria were: year of publication between 2010-2020; study type (meta-analysis, systematic review, randomized clinical trial, non-randomized clinical trial and cohort or control case); induced abortion not addressed; written in English, Portuguese or Spanish; and found in full text. Results: Twenty-eight articles were found and their abstracts were evaluated, where 14 were excluded and 14 were read in full. In the end, 9 studies were included in this review. It was observed that psychological symptoms are frequently presented after pregnancy losses, that there are several ways to access these data and that there is no consensus on the best intervention. In addition, in men and homosexual couples, there is a greater chance of making suffering invisible and a lesser mourning approach by health professionals. Conclusion: In the absence of consensus on which interventions have the best results, it is recommended to screen for mental suffering and share the decision with the parties involved.