Abstract
Background. Mothers of infants admitted to a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) are believed to have heightened distress. The purpose of this paper was to determine depression and anxiety symptoms and attachment style in NICU mothers. Methods. The NICU group consisted of mothers whose infants were admitted to the NICU and the control group consisted of mothers of healthy term infants. The psychosocial assessments were done at the first month. Results. The mean Edinburgh Postpartum Depression (EPDS) score of NICU mothers was significantly higher than that of the control group mothers (9.6 ± 5.6 versus 7.3 ± 4.9, P = .005). NICU mothers who had high EPDS (≥13) scores had significantly higher anxiety scores and insecure attachment style in comparison to the subgroup of NICU mothers who had low EPDS scores. Conclusion. Mothers of NICU babies had higher EPDS scores. Mothers who had higher EPDS scores had higher anxiety scores as well. These NICU mothers should receive appropriate counseling during the hospitalization of their babies.
Highlights
New motherhood involves many abrupt changes and is recognized a stressful life event [1, 2]
There were no significant differences in maternal age, working status, education level, parity, between the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and control groups
We did logistic regression as a multivariate analysis to find out confounding factors for Edinburgh Postpartum Depression (EPDS) score of mothers whose babies were admitted to NICU trough maternal age, working status, education level, parity, duration of hospital stay, birth weight, gestational age, sex of babies and maternal health problems during pregnancies except for socioeconomic status of mothers
Summary
New motherhood involves many abrupt changes and is recognized a stressful life event [1, 2]. Carter et al have reported that average level of anxiety and depressive symptoms in both the NICU and control parents was low, suggesting that for most parents the hospital experience was not associated with depression and anxiety symptoms. They reported that a higher percentage of NICU parents had clinically relevant anxiety [5]. The mean Edinburgh Postpartum Depression (EPDS) score of NICU mothers was significantly higher than that of the control group mothers (9.6 ± 5.6 versus 7.3 ± 4.9, P = .005). These NICU mothers should receive appropriate counseling during the hospitalization of their babies
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