Comparing prevalence rates of depressive symptoms in postpartum and nonpostpartum samples in a low-income community

[摘要] Within the medical models, postpartum depression is constructed as a mental illness, thatwomen are predisposed to during the postpartum period because of the biological andphysiological changes that occur before, during and after childbirth.The present study aimed to determine whether childbirth increases the risk of developingdepressive symptomatology in the first six months after delivery. The objective of the studywas to examine the concept of postpartum depression by analyzing the difference indepressive symptom rates between 41 postpartum women and 254 male and female (whohad not given birth in the previous six months) community members residing in a semi-ruralarea of South Africa. This objective was reached by using a cross-sectional survey researchdesign. The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) was used to elicit the quantitative data. Severalindependent t-tests were conducted to determine the following (i) whether low-income womenthree months postpartum had higher BDI scores in comparison to a combined genderedcommunity sample, and (ii) whether low-income women six months postpartum had higherBDI scores in comparison to a combined gendered community sample. The results indicatedthat the postpartum women did not experience elevated rates of depressive symptoms atthree months or at six months in comparison to the community sample. Men in the 2003community sample displayed significantly higher levels of depressive symptoms than the sixmonthpostpartum women. These findings do not support the assumption that childbirthpredisposes women to psychological vulnerability during the postpartum period.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University