| |
Not only have the articles and studies been difficult to find but the articles and studies I have found have been wide-ranging in the geographical sense of where the research has been conducted – this may have added to the trickiness in sourcing them as often the research had been published in medical journals or by medical institutions that I was unfamiliar with before conducting the database searches. The countries where recent research has been conducted into pseudocyesis include but are not limited to: Brazil, Croatia, Ghana, Nigeria, India and Sudan. This demonstrates several points, firstly that pseudocyesis, whilst being a rare condition, is indeed an international issue and it secondly points to supporting the statement that Seeman (2014) addresses in a research commentary which is that pseudocyesis is a condition which is reported to occur more frequently in developing countries. This is a statement that is further alluded to by the programme of research carried out by the team led by Caixeta (2013) when drawing conclusions from the team’s research in Brazil, which was a retrospective study of twenty patients diagnosed with pseudocyesis over the period of a decade across three different hospitals in a central region of the country. The data collected by Caixeta and the team was then compared with studies on the socio-demographic, clinical, biological and evolutive correlates of pseudocyesis. Caixeta reports that a similarity that the team had noticed amongst the patients in the case studies was that they had a tendency to come from a poor socioeconomic background. Again this ‘pseudocyesis indicator’ is pointed too in what might be considered a more controversial statement by Ouj (2009) when drawing conclusions from the programme of research carried out into case studies in south eastern Nigeria. Ouj suggested that a lack of education was evident in the patients who had suffered pseudocyesis and whilst not stated outright by Ouj, one would extend the conclusion of poor education to indicating that the patient’s held a poor socioeconomic status. However, it must be cautioned that Ouj’s means of determining a patient’s level of education was not made clear and so the statement in regards to poor levels of education should be considered an opinion only.
Whilst the evidence, in terms of case study numbers and patient numbers for pseudocyesis, does support the theory of poor socioeconomic background being a predisposing factor to the possible development of the condition, it should be acknowledged that this isn’t always the case. There are reports of pseudocyesis occurring in developed countries, including the United Kingdom, where Moselhy (2000) reported three case studies of pseudocyesis occurring in a six month period at Bushey Fields Hospital in Dudley. There have also been case studies in the United States which were highlighted in a news report by Keller (2013) who spoke with a doctor who had treated five women for pseudocyesis over the period of the last decade. These case studies and reports from the United Kingdom and United States do not give us insight into the socioeconomic status of the patients, or indeed their level of education but it would be naïve to assume that all the patients came from the same background. From my own experience with pseudocyesis in a London primary school, I would be reluctant to illustrate patients with the condition, as being especially poor or especially uneducated.
Seeman though does make other points that receive support from fellow researchers, these points include the assertion that pseudocyesis often occurs when a married couple find themselves to be infertile for whatever reason and are living in a pro-natalist society, which places a high value on bearing and raising children. This was a notion put forward many years ago by Paulman (1990) when the research that was examined indicated that women in their late thirties to early forties who have experienced fertility problems and/or were desperate to conceive and bear children, were the women who were at greatest risk of developing a pseudocyesis – although it is worth noting that Paulman doesn’t indicate the marital status of the patients in the research. This idea of age and the ticking of the ‘body-clock’ is one that has been explored further still by Habek (2010) who put forward in a research commentary the argument that pseudocyesis has a link to the menopause. The argument finds support in the form of an earlier case study reported on by Bianchi-Demicheli (2004) who also concluded that the onset of the menopause had been a contributing factor to the develop of a pseudocyesis in their patient.
|
