OBJECTIVE: To assess psychiatric morbidity according to clinical diagnosis at six week postpartum.
METHOD: A two-phase study was conducted in the population of women attended at the Obstetric Ward for postpartum check-up over one year. In the first phase, 1453 women completed the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) and a sociodemographic questionnaire. During the second phase, a stratified randomized sample (N=404) according to EPDS score and working status during pregnancy, was administered the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID) in order to establish Axis-I psychiatric diagnosis. Prevalence rates were estimated using reverse weighting. Stata Release 7.0 and SPSS 10.0 were used, with P=0.05 and a confidence interval of 95% (CI 95%).
RESULTS: In the second phase, 179 cases with psychiatric morbidity and 225 controls were identified according to SCID. The estimated psychiatric morbidity prevalence in the study population (n=1453) was of 18.3% (CI 95%:15.0%-22.0%), with one or more psychiatric disorders at six week postpartum. Rates were 9.6% (CI 95% 7.6-12) for postpartum depression, 4.4% (CI 95% 3.0-6.3) for adaptive disorders, 4.2% (CI 95% 2.7-6.5) for anxiety disorders and 0.8% (CI 95% 0.4-1.5) for eating disorders.
CONCLUSIONS: Although depression is the most common postpartum psychiatric disorder, our results suggest that adaptive, anxiety and eating disorders are also present with a high prevalence in this period and therefore further research is required.
