• Wayne Katon, Joan Russo, and Amelia Gavin.
• 1 Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington School of Medicine , Seattle, Washington.
• J Womens Health (Larchmt). 2014 Sep 1; 23 (9): 753-9.

ObjectiveTo examine sociodemographic factors, pregnancy-associated psychosocial stress and depression, health risk behaviors, prepregnancy medical and psychiatric illness, pregnancy-related illnesses, and birth outcomes as risk factors for post-partum depression (PPD).MethodsA prospective cohort study screened women at 4 and 8 months of pregnancy and used hierarchical logistic regression analyses to examine predictors of PPD. The study sample include 1,423 pregnant women at a university-based high risk obstetrics clinic. A score of ≥10 on the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) indicated clinically significant depressive symptoms.ResultsCompared with women without significant postpartum depressive symptoms, women with PPD were significantly younger (p<0.0001), more likely to be unemployed (p=0.04), had more pregnancy associated depressive symptoms (p<0.0001) and psychosocial stress (p<0.0001), were more likely to be smokers (p<0.0001), were more likely to be taking antidepressants (ADs) during pregnancy (p=0.002), were less likely to drink any alcohol during pregnancy (p=0.02), and were more likely to have prepregnancy medical illnesses, including diabetes (p=0.02) and neurologic conditions (p=0.02).ConclusionSpecific sociodemographic and clinical risk factors for PPD were identified that could help physicians target depression case finding for pregnant women.

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