Background
Prenatal depression may have adverse health effects on mothers and their offspring. Perceived stress is an important risk factor for depression during pregnancy. Studies have shown that both perceived stress and depression may negatively influence birth outcomes. While 20% of pregnancies in Suriname, a middle-income Caribbean country located in northern South America, results in adverse birth outcomes, data on prenatal depression and its risk factors are lacking. This study aimed to assess the influence of perceived stress on depression during pregnancy in Surinamese women.
Methods
Survey data were used from 1143 pregnant women who participated in the Caribbean Consortium for Research in Environmental and Occupational Health-MeKiTamara prospective cohort study that addresses the impact of chemical and non-chemical environmental exposures in mother/child dyads in Suriname. The Edinburgh Depression Scale and Cohen Perceived Stress Scale were used to screen for probable depression (cut-off ≥ 12) and high stress (cut-off ≥ 20), respectively. The association between perceived stress and depression was examined using bivariate and multiple logistic regression analyses, adjusted for social support (including resilience) and maternal demographics.
Results
The prevalence of high perceived stress during the first two trimesters and the third trimester were 27.2% and 24.7% respectively. 22.4% of the participants had probable depression during first or second trimester and 17.6% during the third trimester. Women experiencing high stress levels during the first two trimesters had 1.92 increased odds (95% CI 1.18–3.11, p = 0.008) of having probable depression during the third trimester of pregnancy than those with low stress levels. Pregnant women with low individual resilience during early pregnancy (52.1%) had 1.65 (95% CI 1.03–2.63, p = 0.038) increased odds of having probable depression during later stages of pregnancy compared to those with high individual resilience. Low educational level (p = 0.004) and age of the mother (20–34 years) (p = 0.023) were significantly associated with probable depression during the third trimester.
Conclusions
Early detection and management of stress and depression during pregnancy are important. Health education programs, targeting the reduction of stress during pregnancy, may help to reduce depression and its potential adverse health effects on the mother and child.
Environmental health literacy (EHL) involves understanding and using environmental information to make decisions about health. This study developed a validated survey instrument with four scales for assessing media-specific (i.e., air, food, water) and general EHL. The four scales were created as follows: 1) item generation: environmental health scientists and statisticians developed an initial set of items in three domains: knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors; 2) item review: items were reviewed for face validity; 3) validation: 174 public health students, the exploratory sample, and 98 community members, the test sample, validated the scales. The scales’ factor structure was based on exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and model fit was assessed through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). For each scale, the final EFA resulted in an independent three-factor solution for knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. Good fit for the three-factor structure was observed. Model fit for CFA was generally confirmed with fit indices. The scales showed internal consistency with Cronbach’s alpha from 0.63 to 0.70. The 42-item instrument represents an important contribution towards assessing EHL and is designed to enable meaningful engagement between researchers and community members about environmental health. The intended outcome is sustained community–academic partnerships benefiting research design, implementation, translation, dissemination, and community action.
PURPOSE
The purpose of this study was to examine how parental relationship quality (communication frequency, time spent together, closeness) during early adulthood is related to heavy episodic drinking (HED) during this developmental period, and whether effects vary according to age, youth sex or parent sex.
METHODS
National data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics–Transition to Adulthood Study were analyzed. Youth participated in up to four interviews (2005, 2007, 2009, 2011; n=1,320–1,489) between ages 18–25. At each wave, respondents reported past-year HED and their communication frequency, time spent, and closeness with each parent (items combined into an index). We tested differences in parental effects by age, parent sex and youth sex using multigroup latent curve models.
RESULTS
Paternal relationship quality was negatively associated with HED for both males and females at each age; associations did not vary by respondent age or sex (OR=0.73, 95% CI 0.63–0.85). Maternal relationship quality was significantly negatively associated with HED at ages 18–19 among both sexes equally (OR=0.50, 95% CI 0.41–0.61). Although protective associations continued until age 25 for males, they weakened and became non-significant at ages 20–25 for females (OR=0.87, 95% CI 0.72–1.04). Findings were robust to inclusion of multiple covariates associated with both parenting and alcohol use.
CONCLUSIONS
Having close, communicative parental relationships seems protective against HED in early adulthood, although for females maternal effects appear limited to late adolescence. Programs to improve relationship quality between young adults and their parents may help curb problematic drinking during this vulnerable period.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.