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Educational differences in prenatal anxiety and depressive symptoms and the role of childhood circumstances

Despite interest in unequal maternal and child health, previous research has not focused on educational differences in anxiety and depressive symptoms during pregnancy, although they threaten maternal and child wellbeing. Using the prospective FinnBrain Cohort Study data on 2763 pregnant women over...

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Autores principales: Kotimäki, Sanni, Härkönen, Juho, Karlsson, Linnea, Karlsson, Hasse, Scheinin, Noora M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7708856/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33304984
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2020.100690
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author Kotimäki, Sanni
Härkönen, Juho
Karlsson, Linnea
Karlsson, Hasse
Scheinin, Noora M.
author_facet Kotimäki, Sanni
Härkönen, Juho
Karlsson, Linnea
Karlsson, Hasse
Scheinin, Noora M.
author_sort Kotimäki, Sanni
collection PubMed
description Despite interest in unequal maternal and child health, previous research has not focused on educational differences in anxiety and depressive symptoms during pregnancy, although they threaten maternal and child wellbeing. Using the prospective FinnBrain Cohort Study data on 2763 pregnant women over the three pregnancy trimesters and Finnish register data, we estimated multilevel regressions to describe educational differences in prenatal anxiety and depressive symptoms and to analyze whether they can be explained by socioeconomic background, parental mental disorders and adverse experiences during childhood. Prenatal anxiety was measured by the Symptom Checklist (SCL-90-anxiety subscale) and depressive symptoms by the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS). The results showed less anxiety and depressive symptoms among more educated pregnant women. In accounting for the educational differences, we found support for both the social selection and the social causation perspectives. Adverse childhood experiences partly explained the educational differences, highlighting the role of an undisturbed childhood environment in prenatal mental health disparities. Results from the regression models as well as sensitivity analyses also suggested that education is likely to buffer against prenatal distress.
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spelling pubmed-77088562020-12-09 Educational differences in prenatal anxiety and depressive symptoms and the role of childhood circumstances Kotimäki, Sanni Härkönen, Juho Karlsson, Linnea Karlsson, Hasse Scheinin, Noora M. SSM Popul Health Article Despite interest in unequal maternal and child health, previous research has not focused on educational differences in anxiety and depressive symptoms during pregnancy, although they threaten maternal and child wellbeing. Using the prospective FinnBrain Cohort Study data on 2763 pregnant women over the three pregnancy trimesters and Finnish register data, we estimated multilevel regressions to describe educational differences in prenatal anxiety and depressive symptoms and to analyze whether they can be explained by socioeconomic background, parental mental disorders and adverse experiences during childhood. Prenatal anxiety was measured by the Symptom Checklist (SCL-90-anxiety subscale) and depressive symptoms by the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS). The results showed less anxiety and depressive symptoms among more educated pregnant women. In accounting for the educational differences, we found support for both the social selection and the social causation perspectives. Adverse childhood experiences partly explained the educational differences, highlighting the role of an undisturbed childhood environment in prenatal mental health disparities. Results from the regression models as well as sensitivity analyses also suggested that education is likely to buffer against prenatal distress. Elsevier 2020-11-10 /pmc/articles/PMC7708856/ /pubmed/33304984 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2020.100690 Text en © 2020 The Authors http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Kotimäki, Sanni
Härkönen, Juho
Karlsson, Linnea
Karlsson, Hasse
Scheinin, Noora M.
Educational differences in prenatal anxiety and depressive symptoms and the role of childhood circumstances
title Educational differences in prenatal anxiety and depressive symptoms and the role of childhood circumstances
title_full Educational differences in prenatal anxiety and depressive symptoms and the role of childhood circumstances
title_fullStr Educational differences in prenatal anxiety and depressive symptoms and the role of childhood circumstances
title_full_unstemmed Educational differences in prenatal anxiety and depressive symptoms and the role of childhood circumstances
title_short Educational differences in prenatal anxiety and depressive symptoms and the role of childhood circumstances
title_sort educational differences in prenatal anxiety and depressive symptoms and the role of childhood circumstances
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7708856/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33304984
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2020.100690
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