Factors Affecting Depression During Pregnancy and the Correlation Between Social Support and Pregnancy Depression

BACKGROUND: Women are seriously subjected to psychiatric diseases during pregnancy and depression is the most prevailing one among these diseases. There is a relation between the social support and depression in pregnancy whose predisposing factors are genetic, psychological, biological, environmental, and hormonal. OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to determine the frequency of depression symptoms, and its risk factors. Also it studied the correlation between social support and pregnancy depression. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This research is a descriptive cross-sectional study. It was conducted on 266 pregnant women selected by simple random method from all pregnant women admitted at the Maternity Hospital of Trabzon, Turkey from May 21 to June 13, 2008. The data were collected with a questionnaire form, the Beck depression inventory (BDI), and the multidimensional scale of perceived social support (MSPSS). RESULTS: The mean BDI score of the pregnant women was 11.12 ± 6.65. According to the BDI, 46.2% of the pregnant women had no depression symptoms, 34.59% of them had mild, 13.91% had moderate, and 4.89% had severe level of depression symptoms. It was found that such factors as the educational level of the pregnant women and their husbands, having an undesired pregnancy, suffering from a chronic disease before pregnancy, presence of pregnancy-related problems, having a child with disability or having relatives whose children had disability, and smoking during pregnancy were the risk factors affecting the severity of the depression symptoms and these results were statistically significant (P < 0.05). On the other hand, the mean MSPSS score was 67.89 ± 14.26 and it was found that the pregnant women got the highest social support from their husbands. It was found that there was a significant correlation between BDI and MSPSS total score and its subscale scores (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: According to this study, one-fifth of pregnant women were found to experience depressive symptoms, which require treatment during pregnancy, and the factors such as having no support from relatives was found to be associated with the severity of depressive symptoms during pregnancy.