Author(s)

Letizia Carnelli^1,2*, Valentina E. Di Mattei^1,2, Martina Mazzetti¹, Martina Bernardi¹, Rossella Di Pierro³, Alice Bergamini⁴, Francesca Pella⁴, Giorgia Mangili⁴, Lucio Sarno^1,2, Massimo Candiani^1,4

¹Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy.
²Clinical and Health Psychology Unit, IRCCS San Raffaele Hospital, Milan, Italy.
³Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy.
⁴Obstetrics and Gynecology Unit, IRCCS San Raffaele Hospital, Milan, Italy.

Gestational Trophoblastic Disease encompasses a group of pregnancy-related disorders that derive from the placenta. Taking Leventhal’s Common Sense Model as a starting point, this study aims to investigate how illness perception could influence patients’ psychological adaptation to these rare diseases. Thirty-seven women completed: the Illness Perception Questionnaire-Revised, the Beck Depression Inventory Short Form, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and the Fertility Problem Inventory. Results show that the perception of severe illness consequences significantly predicts the level of anxiety patients reported at the time of questionnaire completion. Furthermore, mental representations of illness present a significant association with infertility-related stress. Specifically, the belief in the efficacy of the treatment results in fewer feelings of discomfort and isolation from family and social context due to infertility-related problems. Since patients’ illness perception was found to have a specific impact on both anxiety and infertility-related stress, this variable should be considered in the planning of a clinical intervention.

Gestational Trophoblastic Disease, Illness Perception, Anxiety, Depression, Infertility-Related Stress

Carnelli, L. , Di Mattei, V. , Mazzetti, M. , Bernardi, M. , Di Pierro, R. , Bergamini, A. , Pella, F. , Mangili, G. , Sarno, L. and Candiani, M. (2017) Illness Perception in Gestational Trophoblastic Disease Patients: How Mental Representations Affect Anxiety, Depression, and Infertility-Related Stress. Open Journal of Medical Psychology, 6, 1-15. doi: 10.4236/ojmp.2017.61001.