Prediction of postpartum depression by sociodemographic, obstetric and psychological factors: a prospective study

Many studies have documented serious effects of postpartum depression. This prospective study sought to determine predictive factors for postpartum depression.

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.

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.

The optimum psychological predictor is prepartum depression, and other psychological measures appear to bring no significant additional predictive power.