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Dimensions of depressive symptomatology in mothers derived from factor analyses

  • Maternal-Fetal Medicine
  • Published:
Archives of Gynecology and Obstetrics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

Subtypes of depression have been under studied in women during the peripartum period and the year after childbirth and delivery. Due to heterogeneity of depression, researchers have attempted to identify phenotypes of maternal and postpartum depression based on key symptoms that may represent underlying genes and biological etiology (Leuchter et al. Dialog Clinic Neurosci 16(4):525, 2014).

Methods

The current study collected self-report data from 587 women and utilized exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) to identify subtypes of depression symptoms across two measures.

Results

Findings of the study showed that: (1) using the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II) and the Postpartum Depression Screening Scale (PDSS), a five-factor solution best fit the data in our sample of mothers with infants aged 4–14 months. The factors included: anxiety/thought disorder; cognitive depression; suicide; somatic/neurovegetative; and sleep [χ2 (454, N = 587) = 1102.61, p < 0.001, comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.93, Tucker Lewis index (TLI) = 0.92, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.05]; and (2) the following factors significantly positively predicted interview-based diagnosis of depression: cognitive symptoms of depression and sleep [χ2 (482, N = 587) = 1170.40, p < 0.001, TLI = 0.91, CFI = 0.93, RMSEA = 0.05].

Conclusions

Future research could assess the clinical benefits of screening for maternal mood disorders.

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Notes

  1. Prior to the EFA containing 56 items from both the PDSS and the BDI-II, the researchers conducted separate EFAs of each screeners, to see if latent factor structure was consistent with previous findings from our lab. Indeed, the factors identified matched that of previous SEM models. However, fit was improved in the CFA portion of the analysis when items were combined, rather than when latent factor structure obtained from separate EFAs were tested in the final CFA.

  2. Diagnoses included Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), recurrent, single episode, in full remission, or in partial remission, Persistent Depressive Disorder (PDD), Depressive Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, MDD plus PDD, or past episode of MDD.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Colorado Denver, 1201 Larimer Street, Campus Box 173, Denver, CO, 80204, USA

    Kathryn S. Saldaña, Jonathan A. Shaffer, Kevin D. Everhart, Susan L. Kim & Peter S. Kaplan

Authors
  1. Kathryn S. Saldaña
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  2. Jonathan A. Shaffer
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  3. Kevin D. Everhart
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  4. Susan L. Kim
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  5. Peter S. Kaplan
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Contributions

KS: project development, data collection and  management, data analysis, manuscript writing/editing. JS: data analysis, manuscript writing/editing. KE: project development, data analysis. SK: data collection and management. PK: project development, data management, manuscript editing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kathryn S. Saldaña.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interests or competing interests.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The study was approved by the Colorado Multiple Institutional Review Board (No. 11-1641).

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Saldaña, K.S., Shaffer, J.A., Everhart, K.D. et al. Dimensions of depressive symptomatology in mothers derived from factor analyses. Arch Gynecol Obstet 306, 707–715 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-021-06318-x

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