Poor social support as a risk factor for antenatal depressive symptoms among women attending public antennal clinics in Penang, Malaysia

BACKGROUND: Depression, a type of mental disorder which is portrayed by marked alterations in mood, is associated with distress and/or impaired functioning. Poor social support is an important risk factor for depression in pregnancy. An extensive literature search failed to show any published study conducted in Malaysia on antenatal depressive symptoms and the risk of poor social support on it. The aim of the study was to determine the risk of antenatal depressive symptoms due to poor social support. METHODS: This cross sectional study was conducted among 3000 pregnant women attending antenatal clinics in Penang, Malaysia. Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) was used to screen for antenatal depressive symptoms and the Oslo-3 Social Support Scale (OSS-3) was used to measure social support. Odds ratio and adjusted odds ratio were used to quantify the risk of antenatal depressive symptoms due to poor social support. RESULTS: The prevalence of depressive symptoms was 20%. Using OSS-3 scale to gauge social support, most of the participants had moderate support (61.3%) followed by poor support (22%) and strong support (16.7%). Social support was found to be significantly associated with depressive symptoms in this study (OR 2.2, aOR 2.1, AR 45%). CONCLUSIONS: Considering that an expecting mother’s psychological factors are important in the wellbeing of the mother and child, antenatal depression must be quickly identified. Screening pregnant women for social support can help identify women with higher risk of depression. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12978-017-0404-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.