The association of Emergency Department presentations in pregnancy with hospital admissions for postnatal depression (PND): a cohort study based on linked population data

BACKGROUND: To investigate the impact of presenting to an Emergency Department (ED) during pregnancy on postnatal depression (PND) in women in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. METHOD: An epidemiological population-based study using linked data from the NSW Emergency Department Data Collection (EDDC), the NSW Perinatal Data Collection (PDC) and the NSW Admitted Patients Data Collection (APDC) was conducted. Women who gave birth to their first child in NSW between 1 January 2006 and 31 December 2010 were followed up from pregnancy to the end of the first year after birth. RESULTS: The study population includes 154,328 women who gave birth to their first child in NSW between 2006 and 2010. Of these, 31,764 women (20.58%) presented to ED during pregnancy (95%CI = 20.38–20.78). Women who presented to ED during pregnancy were more likely to be admitted to hospital for the diagnosis of unipolar depression (the adjusted relative risk (RR) =1.86, 95%CI = 1.49–2.31) and the diagnosis of mild mental and behavioural disorders associated with the puerperium (the adjusted RR = 1.55, 95%CI = 1.29–1.87) than those without ED presentation. CONCLUSION: Women’s hospital admissions for postnatal depression were associated with frequent ED presentations during pregnancy.