Poor social support as a risk factor for antenatal depressive symptoms among women attending public antennal clinics in Penang, Malaysia

Abdul Rashid,Rokiah Mohd

doi:10.1186/s12978-017-0404-4

Abstract

BackgroundDepression, a type of mental disorder which is portrayed by marked alterations in mood, is associated with distress and/or impaired functioning. Poor social support is an important risk factor for depression in pregnancy. An extensive literature search failed to show any published study conducted in Malaysia on antenatal depressive symptoms and the risk of poor social support on it. The aim of the study was to determine the risk of antenatal depressive symptoms due to poor social support.MethodsThis cross sectional study was conducted among 3000 pregnant women attending antenatal clinics in Penang, Malaysia. Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) was used to screen for antenatal depressive symptoms and the Oslo-3 Social Support Scale (OSS-3) was used to measure social support. Odds ratio and adjusted odds ratio were used to quantify the risk of antenatal depressive symptoms due to poor social support.ResultsThe prevalence of depressive symptoms was 20%. Using OSS-3 scale to gauge social support, most of the participants had moderate support (61.3%) followed by poor support (22%) and strong support (16.7%). Social support was found to be significantly associated with depressive symptoms in this study (OR 2.2, aOR 2.1, AR 45%).ConclusionsConsidering that an expecting mother’s psychological factors are important in the wellbeing of the mother and child, antenatal depression must be quickly identified. Screening pregnant women for social support can help identify women with higher risk of depression.

Highlights

Depression, a type of mental disorder which is portrayed by marked alterations in mood, is associated with distress and/or impaired functioning
Plain English summary Pregnant women with poor social support are at higher risk for depression but despite the association with many health related events to both mother and child, antenatal depression is less studied compared to post-natal depression
An extensive literature search failed to show any published study conducted in Malaysia on antenatal depression and the risk of poor social support on it probably because like in other Asian cultures, social support is typically high in Malaysia

Summary

Introduction

Depression, a type of mental disorder which is portrayed by marked alterations in mood, is associated with distress and/or impaired functioning. An extensive literature search failed to show any published study conducted in Malaysia on antenatal depressive symptoms and the risk of poor social support on it. The aim of the study was to determine the risk of antenatal depressive symptoms due to poor social support. The prevalence rates reported for antenatal depression could be an underestimate considering that depressed women are less likely to participate in research due to fear, denial and stigma related to mental illness and probably because symptoms of depression could be mistaken for changes which normally occur during pregnancy, resulting in many women not seeking mental health services [11, 12]. Due to the limitation in terms of costs and time and considering that not all community clinics and health clinics provide all levels of antenatal services, only 20 health clinics in the state which had a Family Medicine specialist on staff were used for the study. Once the participant was interviewed, a colour-coded sticker was placed on the file to avoid duplication in the data collection process

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