Analysis of the blues and postpartum depression in women from the city of Cuenca-Ecuador

Abstract

Among the most common psychological disorders in pregnancy and the puerperium are Maternal Blues and Postpartum Depression; both present symptoms that can range from crying, sadness and irritability to low attachment of the mother with her child, self-harm, suicide and/or femicide, so it is essential to be able to identify risk factors, signs and symptoms of these disorders; with the aim of being able to refer the mother to receive psychological and/or psychiatric counseling during pregnancy and the puer-perium. For this reason, the objective of this study is to identify whether there is a correlation between risk factors (low number of births, marital status, domestic violence, level of education, pathological personal history of depression, anxiety) and prenatal depression. In this way, a cross-sectional analytical study was carried out with a sample of 15 women as a pilot test, to analyze the risk factors with two evaluations of the Edinburgh Scale for Postpartum Depression, one at the time of the interview with the patient and the second two weeks later as a follow-up. Through a univariate analysis of the coded variables, frequency tables and the Chi-square test, it was determined that there was no positive statistical correlation between any of the risk factors with both evaluations of the Edinburgh Scale.