Health literacy level of primiparous women with postpartum depression attending to Kabul hospitals, Afghanistan

Health literacy is an individual and social skill and capacity for access, understanding, processing and evaluation, decision making and behavior regarding medical information and health services. The aim of this study was to investigate the level of health literacy of nulliparous women with postpartum depression attending to Kabul hospitals in Afghanistan.

A cross-sectional study was performed with a sample of 281 primiparous women in the sixth to eighth weeks after delivery and with the least literacy skills. After obtaining informed consent, the study population completed demographic and fertility questions, the Edinburgh Postpartum Depression Scale adapted to Dari (D-EPDS), and the Dari Health Literacy Instrument for Adults (D-HELIA). The data were analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistical tests.

The mean score of health literacy was 52.21. One hundred and fifty-eight patients (56.2%) had postpartum depression. The results of multivariate logistic regression showed that postpartum depression significantly was associated with health literacy (OR: 0.95, CI: 0.95-0.99: 95%, p = 0.0001). Also there was significant association between postpartum depression and unwanted pregnancy (p = 0.007), age at marriage (p = 0.006), unwanted sex of the baby (p = 0.006), being abused by the spouse (p = 0.013). There was no statistically significant relationship between postpartum depression and age (p = 0.08), body mass index (p = 0.21), and number of abortions (p = 0.052).

This is the first study that reports on the topic from Kabul-Afghanistan and found that the level of health literacy of primiparous women has a significant relationship with their postpartum depression, It is suggested that educational interventions implemented during pregnancy in order to improve the level of health literacy of primiparous women.