Demographic correlates of paternal postpartum depression in Pakistani males

Abstract

ABSTRACT Introduction Postpartum depression is a quite prevalent phenomenon in Pakistani males with an estimated prevalence rate of 28% as documented by a recent study conducted with males living in Karachi city. As more males are now engaging in the care of infant babies, therefore, the study of paternal postpartum depression is warranted. However, only one study was conducted with Pakistani males to find out the prevalence of paternal postpartum depression. Objective The present study was conducted to find out the demographic correlates of paternal postpartum depression in Pakistani males. Methods A total of 400 males were recruited from the major cities of Pakistan by using purposive, and snowball sampling from December 2020 to April 2021. The study used cross sectional survey research design. The males of 18-45 years age and having the recent birth of a baby in the past 1month to 1 year were included in the study. The age range of participating males was 18-45 years (M=28.50, SD=5.94) whereas the age range of their spouses was 16-43 years (M=24.98, SD=5.08). The informed consent, demographic information form, and Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) Urdu translated version were appended together using Google Form based questionnaire to collect the data. The EPDS Urdu translated version had good Cronbach Alpha reliability of .71. All the participants signed the informed consent before their participation in the survey. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (v25) was used to analyze the data by computing descriptive statistics, and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The value of p<.05 was considered as significant. Results The impact of participants age, age of the spouse, marital duration, birth order of recently born child, time spent at home, sleep duration, educational level, and employment type of participants were analyzed by using descriptive statistics, and analysis of variance. The ANOVA analysis revealed that age, age of spouse, time spent at home, and employment type had a significant impact on postpartum depression in participating males respectively (F(2,397)=6.65, p=.001, ηp2 =.03); (F(2,393)=5.97, p=.003, ηp2 =.02); (F(2,397)=6.23, p=.002, ηp2 =.03); (F(2,395)=9.69, p=.000, ηp2 =.04). On the other hand, marital duration, birth order of the recently born child, sleep duration and educational level of the participating males had no significant impact on the postpartum depression. The post hoc analysis revealed that younger age (18-27 years), younger age of spouse (16-25 years), time spent at home (<12 hours per day), and having a private job or personal business were found to be associated with greater postpartum depression in participating males as compared to middle age (28-45 years), middle age of spouse (26-43 years), time spent at home (≥12 Hours per day), and having a government job. Conclusions There are certain demographic variables which can impact the experience of paternal postpartum depression in Pakistani males. The further studies need to be carried out by including other variables too like social support. Disclosure Work supported by industry: no, by N/A.