An Investigation of the Relationship between Maternal Depression with Gross Motor and Fine Motor Delay in one-year Old Children

Child's optimal and healthy growth in all aspects is indebted to effective relation between parents and child. The quality of this relationship is very important for child's growth and development. Mother's depression can disturb effective child bearing and harm children's growth. The more sever is the depression and the more innumerous are stressors, the more damaged happens to the parent- child relationship. This study is performed to determine the correlation between mother's depression with gross motor and fine motor delay in one year old children. In this cross sectional study, we have chosen and investigated 300 mothers with one year old children that covered by Hamedan urban health centers, using cluster sampling. Data were collected using Beck depression inventory to distinguish mother's depression and Ages and Stages Questionnaire to screen developmental delay in one year children. To determine the correlation between independent and dependent variables, we employed chi square test. Data were analyzed using spss statistical software. Average age of mothers was 29.68±5.6 years with a total of 33.7% having low education (less than 12 years), 32% were diploma and 34.7% had academic education. Prevalence of severe and very severe depression among mothers were 20.8%. There was no correlation between mother’s depression and mother's age with fine and gross motor delay (P>0.05), however, the correlation between gross motor delay and economic situation was significant (P=0.003). There was no significant correlation between mother's depression and child's gross and fine motor delay. Furthermore, the only effective demographic factor was the economic situation of family. This means that gross motor delay was more probable in low socio-economic families.