Chee Cornelia Y I, Chong Yap-Seng, Ng T P, Lee Dominic T S, Tan L K, Fones Calvin S L
Department of Psychological Medicine, National University Hospital, Lower Kent Ridge Road, Singapore 119074, Singapore.
J Affect Disord. 2008 Apr;107(1-3):247-53. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2007.08.004. Epub 2007 Sep 14.
Perinatal depression is common, but women typically do not seek help for it. We studied its association with frequent non-routine physician visits, which may be a form of help-seeking behaviour.
A prospective cohort study of women in their 34th to 38th week of pregnancy at the outpatient obstetrics clinic at a Singapore tertiary hospital was done. Screening was done using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale and diagnosis of major or minor depressive disorder was made using the SCID-IV. At 6 to 12 months' post-partum, women were screened and interviewed again for depression and asked to report the frequencies with which they had brought their infants to the doctor on non-routine visits in the preceding 6 weeks. Four hundred and seventy-one of the 559 patients recruited before delivery were re-interviewed.
After adjusting for confounders, women who had brought their infants for three or more non-routine visits to the infant's doctor had a significantly higher prevalence of depression (32.6%) than those with fewer visits (13.6%) (OR 2.87, 95% CI 1.41 to 5.85, p=0.004). The relative risk reduction for women who did not bring their infants for frequent non-routine visits was 0.583 (95% CI 0.44 to 0.73, p=0.002). They were also more likely to have poorer perceived emotional support from their families.
These included use of self-reported doctor visits, and relatively high educational levels of the participants.
Doctors should have a high index of suspicion for enquiring about depression and emotional support in mothers who bring their infants for frequent non-routine visits.
