A Summary Of Postpartum Depression

Postpartum depression, also known as PPD, is a disorder that many new moms develop after childbirth. The signs and symptoms of PPD after childbirth vary from mild to severe. Postpartum depression can cause significant functional impairment and it increases the risk of poor mother-infant bonding as well as delays in infant development (Katon, Russo, & Gavin, 2014). Knowing the risk factors associated with PPD could help to raise awareness for obstetricians and physicians. Early recognition, screening and interventions are effective ways to improve treatment for women diagnosed with PPD. This paper will discuss a study on the predictors of postpartum depression including the design of the study, sample size, data collection methods, limitations

Out of the 3,039 women initially screened, 1,423 women were used for this sample study, the others being excluded due to lack of assessment or data on the questionnaire. All of these women were receiving prenatal care at the University Obstetrics Clinic and delivered at the University of Washington Hospital during the time period of January 2004 to June 2011. After all of the exclusions made, I believe the sample size that was used was large enough to obtain information from the screenings. Data was also collected during a 7 year time period, which I believe is an adequate amount of time to obtain a varied amount of information on predictor variables. However, all of the data collected was from one obstetrics clinic in one urban area of the U.S. Conducting screenings and obtaining data from various clinics in different regions of the U.S. could have resulted in different findings due to demographic variables, medical conditions, health-related behaviors and pregnancy-related variables of the

These included: younger in age, unemployment status, depressive symptoms during pregnancy, the use of antidepressants, psychosocial stressors, smoking and the diagnosis of diabetes and neurological conditions prior to pregnancy (Katon et al., 2014). The highest risk factor for PPD that the researchers found through data collection and analysis is symptoms of depression during pregnancy. Archer et al. (2012) state that collaborative interventions for the care of depression integrated into medical clinics, which include a physician-supervised care manager, longitudinal measurement of depressive symptoms, and increasing intensity of care based on persistent symptoms have been shown to be an effective way to improve quality of treatment of depression, and depressive and functional outcomes, in both primary care and Ob-Gyn