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Prevalence and risk factors of maternal depression among women who participated in a home visitation program in South Korea

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Abstract

Purpose

The psychosocial health of mother is crucial for healthy prenatal period and early childhood. We investigated the prevalence and risk factors of maternal depression during pregnancy and postpartum among women who participated in a home visitation program in Seoul, South Korea (Seoul Healthy First Step Project, SHFSP).

Methods

We analyzed 80,116 women who participated in the SHFSP, which was launched by Seoul metropolitan government in 2013, and defined peripartum depression as a score ≥ 10 on the Korean version of the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS). Sociodemographic factors and psychosocial health status were evaluated through a standardized questionnaire completed by participants upon program registration. We calculated the prevalence of women at risk for peripartum depression and evaluated associated factors by multivariable logistic regression analysis.

Results

Prevalence of women at risk for peripartum depression was 17.7% (prepartum depression: 14.2%, postpartum depression: 24.3%). Younger maternal age, low income (OR 2.40, 95% CI 2.03–2.84), disability (2.61, 1.96–3.47), single parenthood (3.27, 2.69–3.99), and smoking (2.02, 1.44–2.83) increased the peripartum depression risk. Furthermore, experience of stress, change, or loss over the past 12 months (3.36, 3.22–3.50), history of treatment for emotional issues (2.47, 2.27–2.70), experience of child abuse (1.91, 1.74–2.11), and domestic violence (2.25, 1.81–2.80) increased the risk for peripartum depression, whereas having helpers for the baby (0.62, 0.58–0.67), having someone to talk with (0.31, 0.27–0.35), and considering oneself confident (0.30, 0.29–0.31) decreased the risk.

Conclusions

Policies to reduce and manage peripartum depression should be strengthened, with a focus on high-risk pregnant and puerperal women.

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Availability of data and material

The data are available upon request from the corresponding author.

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Funding

This work was supported by a grant of the Korea Health Technology R&D Project through the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI), funded by the Ministry of Health & Welfare, Republic of Korea (Grant Number: HI19C0481, HC19C0048).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. International Healthcare Center, Asan Medical Center, Seoul, South Korea

    Seo Young Kang

  2. The Support Team for the Seoul Healthy First Step Project, Seoul, South Korea

    Young-Ho Khang, Kyung Ja June, Sung-Hyun Cho, Ji Yun Lee, Yu-Mi Kim & Hong-Jun Cho

  3. Department of Health Policy and Management, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea

    Young-Ho Khang

  4. Institute of Health Policy and Management, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea

    Young-Ho Khang

  5. Department of Nursing, Soonchunhyang University, Cheonan, South Korea

    Kyung Ja June

  6. College of Nursing, Research Institute of Nursing Science, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea

    Sung-Hyun Cho

  7. College of Nursing, Kangwon National University, Chuncheon, South Korea

    Ji Yun Lee

  8. Department of Preventive Medicine, Hanyang University College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea

    Yu-Mi Kim

  9. School of Public Health, Hanyang University College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea

    Yu-Mi Kim

  10. Department of Family Medicine, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, 88, Olympic-ro-43-gil, Songpa-gu, Seoul, 05505, South Korea

    Hong-Jun Cho

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  1. Seo Young Kang
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Contributions

H-JC: conceptualization, methodology, validation, writing—review and editing, supervision, SYK: methodology, formal analysis, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing, visualization, Y-HK: methodology, validation, writing—reviewing and editing, funding acquisition, KJJ: methodology, validation, writing—reviewing and editing, S-HC: methodology, validation, writing—reviewing and editing, JYL: methodology, validation, writing—reviewing and editing, Y-MK: methodology, validation, writing—reviewing and editing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hong-Jun Cho.

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Kang, S.Y., Khang, YH., June, K.J. et al. Prevalence and risk factors of maternal depression among women who participated in a home visitation program in South Korea. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol 57, 1167–1178 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-022-02226-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-022-02226-w

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