[Post-partum depression: a latent problem]

A systematic review of post-partum depression (PPD) was undertaken to check how the issue is being addressed and the presence of nurses involved in such studies. The search for articles was conducted in the Virtual Health Library 106 articles were found 60, in MEDLINE, 28 in LILACS, and 18 in SciELO. It was limited to samples only the articles which the complete texts can be found in SciELO. Of the articles found, two are written by nurses. There was evidence that scientific production is present on the five continents of the world, a quantitative approach being the predominant one, and focusing on the incidence and prevalence, associated factors and treatment of PPD. It was observed that PPD is a problem that affects an increasing number of women during the post-partum period, and requires research that might inform diagnosis, therapy and nursing care for this syndrome.