The Psychologist's Role in High-Risk Pregnancy: An Integrative Review

Abstract

This integrative review aimed to identify publications in the literature referring to the performance of the psychologist in high-risk pregnancy, to characterize this performance and to analyze its main results. The search for articles was carried out without a deadline, with the descriptors "Psycholog*" AND "high risk pregnancy", in the databases EBSCO, PubMed, Embase, PsycInfo, Scopus; and in the virtual libraries VHL, Periódicos Capes and SciELO, being 9 eligible of the 2,452 studies retrieved. The selected studies had as a sample pregnant women from the second trimester of pregnancy, with an important diversity of diagnoses, among them, systemic arterial hypertension with the highest prevalence. The proposals for psychological intervention were equally diverse, with the greatest occurrence being those aimed at managing anxiety and depression, in its totality with improvement in the evaluated clinical outcomes. This study highlights the importance of the performance of psychologists in the high-risk prenatal period through their contribution to the prevention and promotion of maternal-fetal health, which reflects the need to expand psychological intervention research in this context.