Predicting Post-Partum Depression of Nulliparous Women: Role of Social Support and Delivery Type

Post-partum depression affects the mother's health, family relationships and child's training, negatively. Therefore, determining the related reasons, in especial in the women who have the first delivery and will experience the physical and mental changes of such event in their life is very important. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the role of social support as well as the kind of child delivery in order to predict the post-partum depression in such group of women.
The statistical population of this correlational-descriptive study consists of all women in the nulliparous women who have been referred to the medical centers of Kerman during 2016. Among them, 205 were chosen by a cluster and convenience sampling methods. The measurement tools were including demographic features questionnaire, Edinburgh postnatal depression scale (EPDS), and social support questionnaire (MOS-SSS). Data were analyzed with SPSS software using logistic regression and T-test method.
In total, 102 individuals have degrees of postpartum depression and the rest of the patients were non-depressed.The results showed that the possibility of depression emergence in these women, after child delivery based on the decrease of factors such as emotional - informational support, emotional support and positive social interaction support were about 40.18, 10.1 and 5.55%, respectively. Also, the possibility of depression in this group after delivery regarding the kind of delivery was 27%. As well, the women who had caesarian delivery significantly were more depressed rather than whom had natural delivery (p Based on the results of this study, more attention should be paid to increase social support for women who will go into the first labor; and also the preventive treatments must be considered for women give birth a child by caesarian section.