Abstract
BackgroundPregnancy can be a stressful period for most women and their family members, and the mental wellbeing of pregnant women can face serious challenges. Social support can play a role in improving the psychological well-being of pregnant women by enhancing the stress coping ability and alleviating stressful conditions. The current study aimed to assess the mediating effects of social support in the relationship between perceived stress and depressive symptoms as well as anxiety symptoms during pregnancy among Australian women.MethodsOf the 8,010 women who completed Survey 6 of the 1973–78 Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health (ALSWH) cohort in 2012, those who reported being pregnant (n = 493) were included in the current analyses. Antenatal depressive and anxiety symptoms were assessed using the 10 item Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression (CES-D-10) scale, and the 9-item Goldberg Anxiety and Depression scale (GADS) respectively. The 19 item-Medical Outcomes Study Social Support index (MOSS) was used to examine social support. A parallel mediation model was used to explore the mediational role of each domain of social support between perceived stress and antenatal depressive and anxiety symptoms.ResultThe study found that emotional/informational support has a partial mediating effect on the relationship between perceived stress and antenatal depressive symptoms (β = 0.371, 95% CI: 0.067, 0.799) and on the relationship between perceived stress and antenatal anxiety symptoms (β = 0.217, 95% CI: 0.029, 0.462). Affectionate support/positive social interaction and tangible support was found to play no significant mediation role between stress and antenatal depressive and anxiety symptoms.ConclusionsEmotional/informational support appears to play a mediating role in the relationship between stress and antenatal depressive as well as between stress and antenatal anxiety symptoms. In order to further protect pregnant women from the effects of stress, policy makers and maternal health professionals are advised to develop community-based social support programs to enhance prenatal psychosocial support and ensure pregnant women have adequate emotional/information support.
Highlights
Pregnancy can be a stressful period for most women and their family members, and the mental wellbeing of pregnant women can face serious challenges
Social support is a resource or a means that an individual can use to cope with stressful events and improve psychological wellbeing
The relationship between domains of social support and antenatal depressive and anxiety symptoms remains understudied in Australia
Summary
Pregnancy can be a stressful period for most women and their family members, and the mental wellbeing of pregnant women can face serious challenges. The current study aimed to assess the mediating effects of social support in the relationship between perceived stress and depressive symptoms as well as anxiety symptoms during pregnancy among Australian women. Pregnancy is accompanied by changes to a woman’s body hormones, physical appearance, lifestyle, roles and responsibilities [1, 2]. Such changes can cause stress in pregnant women [3] and lead to an increased risk of developing mental health problems such as depressive symptoms [2], and anxiety symptoms [4]. Untreated antenatal anxiety and depression may lead to postnatal depression for the mother which may result in an impaired interaction with her infant [20,21,22]
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