Journal
JOURNAL OF AFFECTIVE DISORDERS
Volume 293, Issue -, Pages 261-267Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.jad.2021.05.082
Keywords
Resilience; Postpartum depression; Mastery; Optimism; Spirituality; Stressful life events
Categories
Funding
- National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) [R01 HD073491]
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The study showed that stressful life events during pregnancy predicted increased postpartum depressive symptoms, while having a sense of mastery and optimism predicted reduced symptoms of postpartum depression. Mastery was found to moderate the association between stressful life events and depressive symptoms, even when controlling for previous psychiatric history.
Background: One in seven women experience postpartum depression, posing a serious public health concern. One of the most robust predictors of elevated postpartum depressive symptoms is major stressful life events that occur during pregnancy. Having greater resilience resources that promote successful adaptation to stressful demands may be protective in the face of stress during pregnancy. The current study tested whether three resilience resources- mastery, dispositional optimism, and spirituality- each predicted early symptoms of postpartum depression and moderated the hypothesized association between experiencing stressful life events during pregnancy and symptoms of postpartum depression. Methods: The sample included 233 women who participated in a prospective longitudinal study from pregnancy through postpartum. Depressive symptoms were assessed at approximately 4 to 8 weeks after birth, whereas resilience resources and stressful life events were measured in pregnancy. Multiple linear regressions were used to test hypotheses. Results: Stressful life events predicted greater symptoms of depression postpartum. Mastery and optimism predicted fewer symptoms of depression postpartum. Mastery moderated the association between stressful life events and symptoms of depression when controlling for previous psychiatric history, t(231) =-1.97, p=.0497. Limitations: There was some attrition among study participants across timepoints, which was accounted for in analyses with multiple imputation. Conclusions: These findings point to the protective nature of a mother's sense of mastery in the face of major life stressors during pregnancy and suggest this is an important construct to target in interventions addressing postpartum depression.
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