Prediction of postpartum depression by sociodemographic, obstetric and psychological factors: a prospective study.
OBJECTIVE
Many studies have documented serious effects of postpartum depression. This prospective study sought to determine predictive factors for postpartum depression.


METHODS
Pregnant women (n = 239) were enrolled before 24 weeks in their pregnancy. At 6 weeks postpartum, 30 women who had postpartum depression and 30 non-depressed mothers were selected. The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) Marital Satisfaction Scale (MSS), and the Childcare Stress Inventory (CSI) were administered to all 60 mothers at 24 weeks pregnancy, 1 week postpartum, and 6 weeks postpartum.


RESULTS
The differences in most of the diverse sociodemographic and obstetric factors assessed were not statistically significant. There were significant differences in MSS scores at 24 weeks pregnancy (P = 0.003), and EPDS (P < 0.001; P = 0.002), BDI (P = 0.001; P = 0.031), and BAI (P < 0.001; P < 0.001) at both 24 weeks pregnant and 1 week postpartum, while there was no significant difference in the RSES scores at 24 weeks pregnant (P = 0.065). A logistic regression analysis was performed on the following factors: 'depressive symptoms immediately after delivery' (EPDS and BDI at 1 week postpartum), 'anxiety' (BAI prepartum), 'stress factors from relationships' (MSS prepartum and CSI at 1 week postpartum) or 'self-esteem' (RSES prepartum). When these four factors were added individually to a model of the prepartum depressive symptoms (EPDS and BDI prepartum), no additional effect was found.


CONCLUSIONS
The optimum psychological predictor is prepartum depression, and other psychological measures appear to bring no significant additional predictive power.
Kim
Yong-Ku
YK
Department of Psychiatry, College of Medicine, Korea University Ansan Hospital, Ansan City, Gojan Dong, Korea. yongku@korea.ac.kr
Hur
Ji-Won
JW
Kim
Kye-Hyun
KH
Oh
Kang-Sub
KS
Shin
Young-Chul
YC
D000328:Adult; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D019052:Depression, Postpartum / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007723:Korea; D008016:Life Change Events; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011247:Pregnancy; D011248:Pregnancy Complications / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D011262:Pregnancy Trimester, Second; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011594:Psychometrics; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors