Risk Factors for Developing Maternal Postpartum Depression; A Retrospective Cross-sectional Study

This was a retrospective descriptive cross-sectional study and included patients were those diagnosed to have PPD within 6 months of delivery at Jordan University hospital (JUH) in the period 1st of January 2014 to the 1st of March 2021, Amman, Jordan. Data was collected retrospectively from the electronic files, from the departments of obstetrics and gynecology and psychiatry JUH in patients, outpatient clinics, inpatients' files delivery room records. All data are electronic in the period of the study. Inclusion criteria; patients with confirmed diagnosis of PPD with complete clinical data and have no other psychiatric diseases. Exclusion criteria; patients with maternal blues, patients with a diagnosis of any other psychiatric diseases, cases of unconfirmed depression and those with missing data.

Main outcome measure was the number of patients who developed PPD within 6 months of childbirth in relation to age, parity and mode of delivery. We collected data of patients who were confirmed to have a diagnosis of postpartum depression by a consultant psychiatrist in the hospital who followed diagnostic criteria of the American psychiatric association11. Intellectual disability was not specifically assessed in our patients.

The variables and information collected for this study included age, parity, mode of delivery, body mass index (BMI) that was objectively measured routinely in our obstetric population. In addition, medications, chronic diseases, past history of depression, psychiatry, breast feeding, and any social or marital problems were also retrieved. Data related to antenatal complications like antepartum hemorrhage (APH), diabetes mellitus (DM), preeclampsia toxemia (PET), urinary tract infection (UTI)/pyelonephritis necessitated hospital admission, postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) with no need for blood transfusion, PPH with blood transfusion, emergency hysterectomy for bleeding, fetal outcome including nursery (good, term), neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) admission: preterm, hypoxemia/acidosis, birth trauma, congenital anomalies, fetal loss [Intrauterine Fetal Death (IUFD), stillborn, neonatal] were also obtained