Association between Depression and Delivery Type

Introduction: Depression during pregnancy disturbs daily activities, acceptance of new roles,
pregnant woman´s life responsibilities, and pregnancy consequences. The goal of this study is to
investigate the association between depression during pregnancy and type of delivery and some
personal characteristics.
Methods: In this descriptive study, 10 health care centers were randomly selected. The
participants included 378 pregnant women (108 depressed and 270 non-depressed). The
questionnaire was developed in two phases. The first phase was during pregnancy and
included both personal characteristics and Beck II standard depression questionnaire and the
second phase was after delivery and included the subjects’ type of delivery. Content validity
and Cronbach´s alpha were employed for validity and reliability of the questionnaires,
respectively. The data were analyzed with SPSS using Chi-square and Mann Whitney tests, as
well as logistic regression model.
Results: Frequency of depression in the population studied was 26.7%. The results showed
that there were significant association between depression during pregnancy and type of
delivery (pvalue =0.01), the education of pregnant women (pvalue<0.001) and their spouses’
education (pvalue =0.001), the pregnant women’s occupation (pvalue =0.04) and their
spouses’ job (pvalue =0.009). There was no significant association between depression during
pregnancy and the women’ age of pregnancy.
Conclusion: The findings of the study suggested to have some instructions in psychic health
for midwives and the personnel providing hygienic-iatric services for pregnant women. It is
necessary to recognize the mothers susceptible depression and then refering them to
psychiligists.