Family Support as a Determinant of Major Depression among Pregnant Women in a Low-resource Setting

Background: Mental wellbeing of the expectant mother, with particular reference to depression may be improved with a strong and effective family support. This study thus aimed to determine the relationship between major depression with perceived family support among pregnant women attending antenatal clinic in the Rivers State University Teaching Hospital.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional study carried out among 163 participants recruited via systematic random sampling at the antenatal clinic of RSUTH. Data on socio-demographic, obstetrics and medical information were obtained with the aid of semi-structured interviewer-administered questionnaire. Screening for depression was done using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) while perceived social support-family scale (PSS-Fa) was used to assess the perceived family support among the participants. Data was analyzed with SPSS version 23. A p-value of less than 0.05 was considered significant.

Results: The mean age of the subjects was 29.1±4.53years with an age range of 20 - 40 years. The highest proportion (43.6%) of the participants was within the age group of 26-30 years. Majority of the subjects were married (87.1%) from monogamous families (73.6%) and had tertiary level of education (67.5%), Majority were within high social class (56.4%), and did not experience intimate partner violence (92.6%). The prevalence of depression was 44.8%. The majority had a strong family support (82.8%). Equal number 14 (8.6%) of participants had no family support and weak family support respectively. All 14(100%) of the participants who had no family support developed antepartum depression; then, out of the 14 participants who had weak family support, 7 (50%) had antepartum depression and 52(38%) of the 135 participants who had strong family support developed antepartum depression (X=19.558; p=0.0001).

Conclusions: Family support during pregnancy was inversely related to the prevalence of major antepartum depression. This finding thus highlights the need for Family Physicians to utilize the role of family support in achieving better mental wellbeing in pregnant women and reduction of the prevalence of antepartum depression and its sequelae.