What accounts for depressive symptoms among mothers? The impact of socioeconomic status, family structure and psychosocial stress

Sperlich, Stefanie; Arnhold-Kerri, Sonja; Geyer, Siegfried

doi:10.1007/s00038-011-0272-6

Cited by 41 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…This estimate is also consistent with previous studies [5, 7, 35], and is of particular concern since mental health is strongly associated with physical health [36]. …”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Association of social support and socio-demographic characteristics with poor self-rated health and depressive symptomatology among single mothers in Cyprus: a descriptive cross-sectional study

2016

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BackgroundThe number of single-parent families headed by mothers is rapidly growing worldwide. A large part of the international literature reveals that single motherhood is associated with increased levels of chronic stress, mainly due to economic distress and reduced levels of social support, which may eventually lead to physical and psychological illness. Most published research comes from Northern Europe and the US, while it is accepted that both social welfare systems and societal factors vary substantially across countries. These issues haven’t been explored in Southern Europe and this study aims to fill this gap by a) assessing the health of single mothers in Cyprus in terms of self-assessed general health and the prevalence of clinical depressive symptoms and b) investigating the effect of perceived social support relation to their health status.MethodsGeneral health was assessed in terms of Self-Rated Health (SRH), while the prevalence of clinical depressive symptoms was assessed with the Center of Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D). Perceived social Support was assessed with the Social Provision Scale. All scales were completed anonymously and voluntary by 316 single mothers. Univariable and multivariable associations between SRH and depressive symptoms with socio-demographic characteristics were investigated using chi-square tests and in multivariable backward stepwise logistic regression models respectively. Odd ratio of clinically significant depressive symptoms and SRH across decreasing levels of social support were estimated in logistic regression models.ResultsThe prevalence of depressive symptoms (CES-D score ≥ 22) was 38.9 %, which is almost three times greater than the general population. Strong associations with all health assessment tools were observed with variables relating to the lowest monthly family income and the presence of economic difficulties, unemployment, the single motherhood status and pre-existing illness. Social support as perceived by the mothers displayed a strong negative independent association with all tools, even after adjusting confounders.ConclusionThese findings can be a challenge for health care professionals, especially those working in the field of community-family nursing and highlight the necessity of interventions and strategies at community level in order to support this vulnerable population group.

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“…This estimate is also consistent with previous studies [5, 7, 35], and is of particular concern since mental health is strongly associated with physical health [36]. …”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Association of social support and socio-demographic characteristics with poor self-rated health and depressive symptomatology among single mothers in Cyprus: a descriptive cross-sectional study

2016

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“…Age and race are correlates of this association, with younger women being more predisposed to depression than their older counterparts, (Brown et al 2012;Horwitz et al 2007), and lone mothers of color having a higher risk of depression than white mothers (Wang 2004). The number of children is an important predictor of maternal mental health, with more children corresponding with an increase in risk for depression (Horwitz et al 2007;Sperlich et al 2011b). Additionally, the amount of social and partner support the mother perceives to have, and chronic stress were also associated with increased risk (Cairney et al 2003;Sperlich et al 2011b).…”

Section: Prior Research Investigating Lone Motherhood and Depressionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The number of children is an important predictor of maternal mental health, with more children corresponding with an increase in risk for depression (Horwitz et al 2007;Sperlich et al 2011b). Additionally, the amount of social and partner support the mother perceives to have, and chronic stress were also associated with increased risk (Cairney et al 2003;Sperlich et al 2011b).…”

Section: Prior Research Investigating Lone Motherhood and Depressionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Associations Between Lone Motherhood and Depression: A Co-twin Control Study

Dinescu

Haney-Claus

Turkheimer

et al. 2017

Lone Parenthood in the Life Course

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“…stress, depression, hostility, or loneliness may originate from trauma, pessimism, low economic income, addiction, unmarried, or social isolation (Sbarra et al, 2011;Sperlich et al, 2011). Negative psychology not only yielded cancer generation, development, and progression but also reduced the survival time of cancer patients by lowering human immune functions or stimulating the signaling pathway of cancer in the human body (Conti et al, 2011;Lamkin et al, 2012).…”

Section: 185 Expression Profiles Of Loneliness-associated Genes For mentioning

confidence: 99%

Expression Profiles of Loneliness-associated Genes for Survival Prediction in Cancer Patients

You

Yeh

Su³

2014

Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention

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Influence of loneliness on human survival has been established epidemiologically, but genomic research remains undeveloped. We identified 34 loneliness-associated genes which were statistically significant for highlonely and low-lonely individuals. With the univariate Cox proportional hazards regression model, we obtained corresponding regression coefficients for loneliness-associated genes fo individual cancer patients. Furthermore, risk scores could be generated with the combination of gene expression level multiplied by corresponding regression coefficients of loneliness-associated genes. We verified that high-risk score cancer patients had shorter mean survival time than their low-risk score counterparts. Then we validated the loneliness-associated gene signature in three independent brain cancer cohorts with Kaplan-Meier survival curves (n=77, 85 and 191), significantly separable by log-rank test with hazard ratios (HR) >1 and p-values <0.0001 (HR=2.94, 3.82, and 1.78). Moreover, we validated the loneliness-associated gene signature in bone cancer (HR=5.10, p-value=4.69e-3), lung cancer (HR=2.86, p-value=4.71e-5), ovarian cancer (HR=1.97, p-value=3.11e-5), and leukemia (HR=2.06, p-value=1.79e-4) cohorts. The last lymphoma cohort proved to have an HR=3.50, p-value=1.15e-7. Lonelinessassociated genes had good survival prediction for cancer patients, especially bone cancer patients. Our study provided the first indication that expression of loneliness-associated genes are related to survival time of cancer patients.

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What accounts for depressive symptoms among mothers? The impact of socioeconomic status, family structure and psychosocial stress

Abstract: The findings are pointing to the importance of life-phase specific stressors for explaining depressive symptoms among mothers.

Cited by 41 publications

References 35 publications

Association of social support and socio-demographic characteristics with poor self-rated health and depressive symptomatology among single mothers in Cyprus: a descriptive cross-sectional study

Association of social support and socio-demographic characteristics with poor self-rated health and depressive symptomatology among single mothers in Cyprus: a descriptive cross-sectional study

Associations Between Lone Motherhood and Depression: A Co-twin Control Study

Expression Profiles of Loneliness-associated Genes for Survival Prediction in Cancer Patients

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