|
A psychiatric study was conducted on the female sterilization with randomly selected 102 women who had been given the laparoscopic tubal ligation for contraceptive reason at Yonsei University, Medical Center from April to September in 1977. Each patient was interviewed evaluated her emotional state by two psychiatrists twice, before and six months after the operation. Results indicated that the contraceptive laparoscopic tubal ligation was a relatively safe procedure in psychiatric aspects and that most patients were satisfied with the result of operation. However, some patients complained that various psychiatric symptoms had developed or aggravated after the operation as sequele. Those were depression, anxiety, hypochondria, fear, impaired intellectual functioning, irritability and associated psychosomatic disturbances such as decreased libido, indigestion, menstrual disturbance, headache, palpitation, backache and fatigability. But those symptoms were not of neurotic severity but of very mild one. It was also revealed that the poor outcome were associated with patient` already existing psychiatric problems in their personal life, premorbid personality and their motivation for the operation. Among them the most significant factors were too early operation in young age, involuntary operation, less experience with other contraceptive methods, neurotic personality and various difficulties in their marital and sexual life. Other factors such as religion, number of children and occupation were also discussed. About 20% of the patients regretted for the operation but no one considered the repairing operation. The main reason of regret for the operation were that they had no son or would never have son any more in the future, and that the tubal ligation would mean the loss of feminity and sexual function. These seemed to reflect the boy-preferring tendency in korean society and their poor medical knowledge. So we concluded that, to minimize or prevent these sequele, preoperative psychiatric evaluation is
|