A hospital based prospective survey of perinatal depression in Chinese women of Jiamusi city

Objectives: To evaluate whether an antenatal and immediate postpartum Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale score are predictive of future postpartum depression and observe the correlation in-between the scores and associated risk factors. Methods: Study Design A survey recruiting 345 women from March 2015 to February 2016 using Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale for same group of individuals: once before the delivery, during third trimester and twice postpartum in women seeking antenatal service in three major hospital of Jiamusi, Heilongjiang Province, China. We used cut-off score <12 as normal and >13 as risk of depression. The relation between EPDS scores across three stages were assessed using Spearman’s correlation, chi-square test was used to examine association of socio-demographic variable and series of logistic regression to examine statistical significance between EPDS scores and associated risk factors. Results: A total of 167 women were studied with average age of 28.31±5.036 years. Chi-square test showed that younger (p=0.029), unemployed (p=0.022), primiparous (p=0.039), less educated (p=0.040) women are more prone to perinatal depression. Further Spearman’s Non-parametric correlation test showed that postpartum depression has positive correlation with both antepartum (χ2=3.977, df=1, p=0.018) and immediate postpartum (χ2=3.977, df=1, p=0.046). Binary logistic regression analysis showed that parity (Wald=4.754, p=0.029), and occupation (Wald=3.839, p=0.050) were independent risk factors for antepartum depression. Mode of birth (Wald=4.513, p=0.034), antepartum EPDS score (Wald=3.877, p=0.049) and immediate postpartum EPDS score (Wald=4.038, p=0.044) were independent risk factors for postpartum depression. Conclusions: 1) Higher EPDS score prenatally tends to persist postnatal indicating chances of developing postpartum depression in susceptible individuals. 2) Early screening prenatally can guide clinician for active psychological support to susceptible cases thereby minimizing probability of postpartum depressions.