ABSTRACT
Background: Pregnancy and childbirth are important events in the life of a woman and also highly vulnerable period of various physiological and psychological illnesses. Several literatures propound that 22% young Indian mothers are showing depressive symptoms after delivery. The consequence of maternal depression is adverse both for mother and development of the child. Objective of this study was to examine the social and obstetric factors contributing post-partum depression.Methods: Women, 18-35 years of age, having four days to one-year postpartum period was taken from the tertiary care hospital settings. Terminal illness, still birth delivery and comorbid psychiatric illness was excluded. Screening and diagnosis of postpartum depression done based on international classification of diseases (ICD 10) using Edinburgh post-natal depression scale (EPDS). A comparative approach by the means of descriptive statistics was implied for data analysis where mothers with depressive symptoms are experimental group and non-depressed mothers were acted as the controls.Results: Study findings indicated a statistically significant association between postpartum depression and risk factors such as occupation and average social economic class, first time delivery.Conclusions: It is a preliminary study in a restricted geographical area, not covering the neurobiological risk factors of postpartum depression. Hence, the future study will focus on the large sample size in a multi areal population for assuring the accuracy of the result.
ABSTRACT
Background & objectives: The population of elderly is growing globally and so are the physical illnesses and psychiatric morbidity. This study was planned to assess the prevalence and patterns of psychiatric morbidity amongst rural older adults in Lucknow, north India. Methods: A survey was conducted in subjects aged 60 yr and above to identify the cases of psychiatric morbidity in rural population from randomly selected two revenue blocks of Lucknow district, Uttar Pradesh, India. All subjects were screened through Hindi Mental Status Examination (HMSE) and Survey Psychiatric Assessment Schedule (SPAS) to identify for the suspected cases of cognitive and the psychiatric disorders, respectively. The subjects screened positive on HMSE and SPAS were assessed in detail on Cambridge Mental Disorder of the Elderly Examination-Revised (CAMDEX-R) and Schedule for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry (SCAN), to diagnose cognitive disorders and psychiatric disorders (other than the cognitive), respectively on the basis of International Classification of Diseases-10 (ICD-10) diagnostic guidelines. Results: The overall prevalence of psychiatric morbidity in rural older adults was found to be 23.7 per cent (95% CI=21.89-25.53). Mood (affective) disorders were the commonest (7.6%, 95% CI=6.51-8.80), followed by mild cognitive impairment (4.6%, 95% CI=3.72-5.53), mental and behavioural disorders due to substance use (4.0%, 95% CI=3.17-4.87) and dementia (2.8%) [Alzheimer’s disease (2.4%, 95% CI=1.81-3.16) and vascular (0.4%, 95% CI=0.16-0.73)]. Interpretation & conclusions: Overall prevalence of psychiatric morbidity amongst rural elderly in this study was found to be less in comparison to those reported in earlier studies from India. However, prevalence pattern of different disorders was found to be similar. Therefore, it appears that a stringent methodology, refined case criteria for diagnosis and assessment by trained professionals restrict false diagnosis.