Original ArticlesAssault victim history as a factor in depression during pregnancy☆
Section snippets
Materials and methods
All consenting obstetric outpatients at the obstetric and gynecologic clinics in Sabah Maternity Hospital and Farwaniya Hospital, two large Ministry of Health hospitals in Kuwait, were eligible. Subjects were recruited over 8 months and comprised 67% of all outpatients approached to participate. Comparison of demographics of subjects (Table 1) with yearly hospital records of women who presented for obstetric care found no significant differences and suggested that our sample was representative.
Results
Two hundred forty-eight married, pregnant women completed the study. Just over half presented to the clinic for routine prenatal care (53.2%; n = 132); the remainder were divided between high-risk pregnancies (26.6%; n = 66) and pregnancies with complications (20.2%; n = 50). Twenty-five percent (n = 62) of all subjects were pregnant for the first time; 7.6% (n = 19) had been pregnant previously but had not completed a pregnancy to viability. Over half of all subjects presented in the third
Discussion
Previous investigations5 suggested that chronic or daily stressors contribute significantly to depression during pregnancy. Family stress is especially pertinent for women in Kuwait and was found to be of significance in the multivariate analyses of stressors on depression symptoms. Consistent with previous research on psychosocial factors in depression during pregnancy, marital conflict and stressful events were also found to influence the severity of depression symptomatology in pregnant
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This study was supported by Kuwait University Research Grant MDQ 298 to MBN.