article · Ethiopian Journal of Health Sciences
A cross-sectional study evaluated the prevalence of antenatal depressive symptoms and associated risk factors among 196 pregnant women attending antenatal care at public health facilities in Maichew Town, Northern Ethiopia. Depressive symptoms were measured using a local language version of the Beck Depression Inventory with a cut-off score of 14 or higher. Nearly one-third of the participants, representing 31.1 percent, experienced antenatal depression. Several socio-demographic factors showed statistically significant associations with higher risks of depression. Specifically, women who were unmarried, those identified as housewives, and those living with low income levels faced over three to four times the odds of developing depressive symptoms compared to their counterparts. The findings highlight antenatal depression as a frequent health concern during pregnancy and suggest that depression screening should be integrated into routine antenatal care services, prioritising economically vulnerable and unmarried women.
Antenatal depression can threaten the health and survival of both mothers and their infants. Identifying that nearly one-third of pregnant women in this setting experience depression underscores an urgent need for maternal mental health care. By pinpointing vulnerable groups such as low-income, unmarried women and housewives, health providers can design focused public health interventions to detect and manage depression early during pregnancy.
The findings suggest potential application in developing routine screening workflows or adapted diagnostic assessment toolkits for healthcare providers and psychiatric nurses in public clinics. However, because this is an early-stage observational epidemiological study focused on establishing prevalence and socio-demographic risk factors, the abstract does not indicate an immediate commercial application pathway.
AI-generated from the published abstract. Always read the original work before citing.
BACKGROUND: Antenatal depression is one of the common problems during pregnancy with a magnitude of 20% to 30% globally. It can negatively endanger women's and off springs lives. As there are scarce reports on this area in Northern Ethiopia, it is important to carry out different studies that explore the magnitude of the problem and related factors in rural areas. The aim of this study is thus to assess the magnitude of antenatal depressive symptoms and associated factors among women at Maichew Town, North Ethiopia. METHODS: A facility based cross sectional study was conducted among 196 pregnant women from April to June 2015. Pregnant women who had antenatal care follow-ups at the public health facilities were included in the study. Through proportional allocation to each facility, systematic random sampling technique was used to select the study participants. We used the local language version of Beck Depression Inventory to assess depressive symptoms with a cutoff point of 14 or more. Data was collected by trained Psychiatric Nurses; data entry and analysis were processed by SPSS window 20. The level of significance was determined using odds ratio and 95% confidence interval. RESULTS: About 16.3% of the participants had never given birth before, and 46.4% and 42.3% were in the third and second trimesters of pregnancy respectively. Unwanted pregnancy was reported by 25.5% of the participants. Among those with previous pregnancy, 7.1% had previous obstetric complication. The magnitude of depression was 31.1%. Pregnant women with low level of income (AOR=3.66 (95%CI; 1.12, 11.96)), unmarried (AOR=4.07 (95% CI; 1.18, 14.04)) and house wives (AOR= 4.24 (1.38, 13.03)) were risk groups for depression. CONCLUSION: Antenatal depression is a common problem; thus screening activities of depression in antenatal care services should be emphasized with more concern to unmarried women, those with low level of income and house wives.
This page summarises published work. The authoritative version sits with the publisher.
DOI: 10.4314/ejhs.v27i1.8
Is something wrong with this record? Report it or request removal.
Discussion
Have you built on this work, tried to replicate it, or seen it applied in practice? Share what you know. Verified researchers and MARATTO™ domain experts can open a discussion, and any member can reply. Contributions are reviewed before they appear.
No discussion yet. Open the first thread.
New to MARATTO™? Create a free account.
