[The psychosomatic aspects of complaints of varicose veins during pregnancy. A psychosometric investigation in 345 antenatal patients (author's transl)].

A discrepancy between complaints of varicose veins of the legs such as stabbing in the legs, pain in the legs, tiredness of the legs, heaviness of the legs, feeling of swelling in the legs and nocturnal cramps in the calves, and anatomical signs of varicose veins in the legs was observed. Therefore these complaints were analyzed in 345 antenatal patients regarding their psychological aspects. No complaints of venous insufficiency were found in 47% of the pregnant women. Of the 53% antenatal patients with complaints, 24% had mild, 18% had moderate and 11% had severe complaints. Antenatal patients with well noticable neurotic personality traits in the MPI had complaints twice as often as women without neurotic traits (p smaller than 0.05). Introverted antenatal patients (according to the MPI) had more venous leg complaints than expected (p smaller than 0.05). Pregnant women with frequent psychosomatic complaints and altered general well being had the highest incidence of varicose veins complaints (p smaller than 0.001) or p smaller than 0.05). In addition to these psychometric data, there was also a correlation of the gynaecological history with complaints of venous insufficiency in the legs during pregnancy. Pregnant women with a very painful menarche had more varicose vein complaints than expected (p smaller than 0.05). The incidence was also higher with a history of abortion (p smaller than 0.05), marked dysmenorrhea (p smaller than 0.01) and side effects from oral contraception (p smaller than 0.01) and in primigravida (p smaller than 0.05). Age was only correlated to the symptom of stabbing pain in the legs in a statistically significant correlation (p smaller than 0.05). The results were tested statistically for significance with the X2-method.