1049 – Correlates Of Postpartum Depressive Symptomatology

Abstract

Introduction

Postpartum depressive symptomatology is highly prevalent and has negative impact in the entire family.

Objective

To identify correlates of postpartum depressive symptomatology.

Methods

201 3-months postpartum women completed the Portuguese versions of Postpartum Depression Screening Scale/PDSS, Profile of Mood States, Difficult Infant Temperament Questionnaire/DITQ, Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale and questions on sociodemographic variables (marital status, work status, educational level, parity), Lifetime history of insomnia/LTHD, Lifetime history of depressive symptomatology /LTHDS, Current insomnia, Sleep needs, Health perception/HP, Stress perception/SP, Perceived social support/PSS, Quality of life/QOL, Health problem/complication postpartum, Sensibility to hormonal fluctuations, Type of delivery and Type of feeding.

Results

Total PDSS significantly correlated with LTHDS (rs=.35), LHI (rs=.22), Current insomnia (rs=.37), SP (rs=39), PSS (rs=.25), Perceived QOL (rs=.31), Health perception (rs=.28), Health problem or complication in the postpartum (rs=.16), Negative Affect/NA (r=.59), Positive Affect/PA (r=-.67), Conditional Acceptance/CA(r=.29) and DIT (r=.40) (all p< .01). Mean comparisons revealed that women with vs. without LHDS, with vs. without LTHI, good sleepers vs. with insomnia syndrome, high vs. low SP, bad/very bad vs. good/very good QOL, bad/very bad vs. good very good HP, high (< M+1DP) vs. low (>M-1DP) DIT, CA, NA and low vs. high PA had significantly higher mean scores in AI (all p< .01). Linear regression model composed of all correlated variables explained 53.9% of depressive symptomatology variance and showed that NA, PA, DIT and HP are significant (p< .05) predictors of AI.

Conclusion

These results are in line with previous findings and contribute to the progress on this topic.