Maternal depressive symptoms and infant diarrhea in Bangladesh

Abstract

Diarrhea is the leading cause of death in children under 5 worldwide. Our objective was to examine the relation between maternal depressive symptoms and diarrhea in infants 6 to 24 mo in Bangladesh. Mother infant dyads (n=318) were followed for 6 months; depressive symptoms were collected at baseline, 3 mo, and 6 mo using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CESD); infant diarrhea data was collected every two weeks. CESD scores were averaged across the three time points and the mean used for the analyses. Infants were part of a larger RCT evaluating the effectiveness of different micronutrient supplement delivery approaches on improving diarrhea and anemia (Chang et al., 2010). Multivariate regression analysis was used to examine the relation between depressive symptoms and diarrhea, adjusting for variables known to affect diarrhea (infant sex, infant age, Home Observation for the Measurement of the Environment Inventory). After adjusting for these variables, CESD was significantly related to diarrhea prevalence (p=0.006). This held true even after adding supplementation group to the model. These findings highlight the importance of addressing maternal depressive disorders in interventions aimed at reducing child mortality. Funding: USAID to the Johns Hopkins Global Research Activity Cooperative Agreement