Magnitude and determinants of psychological morbidities among pregnant women: Results from a pregnancy cohort in rural Central India.

BACKGROUND

Psychological morbidities are one of the emerging global health problems. It affects a considerable number of ante-natal women leading to consequences during the postnatal period as well. We conducted this research to study the magnitude and determinants of psychological morbidities during pregnancy.

METHODS

In this study, we included 650 pregnant women from an established cohort of 2500 pregnant women and assessed the psychological morbidities among them using the GMHAT/PC tool.

RESULTS

The overall prevalence of psychological morbidities during pregnancy was 14.6%, with anxiety and depression being the leading ones. Low education levels, lower socio-economic status, unintended pregnancy, complicated previous pregnancy, lack of family and social support, and domestic violence increased the odds of psychological morbidity. On Multivariate logistic regression, Low education levels increased the odds to more than twice [illiterate/primary schooling OR: 4.00, p = 0.026; secondary schooling OR: 2.64, p = 0.034; high school OR: 2.60, p = 0.033] unintended pregnancy [OR: 1.91, p = 0.043] and lack of family support [OR: 7.19, p < 0.001] increased the odds of psychological morbidity among pregnant women.

CONCLUSION

Bringing these issues to the mainstream and addressing them by developing interventions to address them during the lifecycle of a female will help to prevent episodes of psychological stress and morbidity among pregnant females.