Paternal and Maternal Transition to Parenthood: The Risk of Postpartum Depression and Parenting Stress

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

Transition to parenthood represents an important life event increasing vulnerability to psychological disorders. Postpartum depression and parenting distress are the most common psychological disturbances and a growing scientific evidence suggests that both mothers and fathers are involved in this developmental crisis. This paper aims to explore maternal and paternal experience of transition to parenthood in terms of parenting distress and risk of postpartum depression. Seventy-five couples of first-time parents were invited to compile the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale and the Parenting Stress Index-Short Form in the first month of children life. Study sample reported very high levels of parenting distress and a risk of postpartum depression in 20.8% of mothers and 5.7% of fathers. No significant correlation between parenting distress and the risk of postpartum depression emerged, both in mothers than in fathers group while maternal distress levels are related to paternal one. The first month after partum represents a critical phase of parents life and it could be considered a developmental crisis characterized by anxiety, stress and mood alterations that could have important repercussions on the child psycho-physical development.

Related collections

Most cited references 31

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Detection of postnatal depression. Development of the 10-item Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale.

J Cox, J. Holden, R Sagovsky (1987)

The development of a 10-item self-report scale (EPDS) to screen for Postnatal Depression in the community is described. After extensive pilot interviews a validation study was carried out on 84 mothers using the Research Diagnostic Criteria for depressive illness obtained from Goldberg's Standardised Psychiatric Interview. The EPDS was found to have satisfactory sensitivity and specificity, and was also sensitive to change in the severity of depression over time. The scale can be completed in about 5 minutes and has a simple method of scoring. The use of the EPDS in the secondary prevention of Postnatal Depression is discussed.

0 comments Cited 1454 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Paternal depression in the postnatal period and child development: a prospective population study.

Paul Ramchandani, Alan Stein, Jonathan Evans … (2005)

Depression is common and frequently affects mothers and fathers of young children. Postnatal depression in mothers affects the quality of maternal care, and can lead to disturbances in their children's social, behavioural, cognitive, and physical development. However, the effect of depression in fathers during the early years of a child's life has received little attention. As part of a large, population-based study of childhood, we assessed the presence of depressive symptoms in mothers (n=13,351) and fathers (n=12,884) 8 weeks after the birth of their child with the Edinburgh postnatal depression scale (EPDS). Fathers were reassessed at 21 months. We identified any subsequent development of behavioural and emotional problems in their children (n=10,024) at age 3.5 years with maternal reports on the Rutter revised preschool scales. Information was available for 8431 fathers, 11,833 mothers, and 10,024 children. Depression in fathers during the postnatal period was associated with adverse emotional and behavioural outcomes in children aged 3.5 years (adjusted odds ratio 2.09, 95% CI 1.42-3.08), and an increased risk of conduct problems in boys (2.66, 1.67-4.25). These effects remained even after controlling for maternal postnatal depression and later paternal depression. Our findings indicate that paternal depression has a specific and persisting detrimental effect on their children's early behavioural and emotional development.

0 comments Cited 205 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Validation of the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale for men, and comparison of item endorsement with their partners.

Stephen Matthey, Bryanne Barnett, David J Kavanagh … (2001)

The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) has been validated and used extensively in screening for depression in new mothers, both in English speaking and non-English speaking communities. While some studies have reported the use of the EPDS with fathers, none have validated it for this group, and thus the appropriate cut-off score for screening for depression or anxiety caseness for this population is not known. Couples were recruited antenatally and interviewed at six weeks postpartum. EPDS scores and distress caseness (depression or anxiety disorders) for 208 fathers and 230 mothers were determined using the Diagnostic Interview Schedule. Analyses of the EPDS for fathers using distress caseness (depression or anxiety disorders) as the criterion shows that a cut-off of 5/6 has optimum receiver operating characteristics. Furthermore acceptable reliability (split-half and internal consistency) and validity (concurrent) coefficients were obtained. For mothers the optimum cut-off screening value to detect distress caseness was 7/8. Item analysis revealed that fathers endorsed seven of the ten items at lower rates to mothers, with the most significant being that referring to crying. The EPDS is a reliable and valid measure of mood in fathers. Screening for depression or anxiety disorders in fathers requires a two point lower cut-off than screening for depression or anxiety in mothers, and we recommend this cut-off to be 5/6.

0 comments Cited 160 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

All references

Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Pediatr Rep

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Pediatr Rep

Journal ID (publisher-id): PR

Title: Pediatric Reports

Publisher: PAGEPress Publications, Pavia, Italy

ISSN (Print): 2036-749X

ISSN (Electronic): 2036-7503

Publication date (Electronic): 24 June 2015

Publication date Collection: 25 May 2015

Volume: 7

Issue: 2

Electronic Location Identifier: 5872

Affiliations

Department of Psychological and Educational Sciences, University of Palermo , Italy

Author notes

Department of Psychological and Educational Sciences, University of Palermo, via delle Scienze, 90128 Palermo, Italy. +39.091.238.97714 – +39.091.651.3825. mariastella.epifanio@ 123456unipa.it

Contributions: the authors contributed equally.

Conflict of interests: the authors declare no potential conflict of interests.

Article

DOI: 10.4081/pr.2015.5872

PMC ID: 4508624

PubMed ID: 26266033

SO-VID: 738880e7-1254-4b17-b3ea-8f8111c67133

License:

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

History

Date received : 13 February 2015

Date accepted : 25 May 2015

Page count

Figures: 0, Tables: 5, Equations: 0, References: 72, Pages: 7

Comments

Comment on this article

Cited by 59

See all cited by

Most referenced authors 444

See all reference authors