Longitudinal effects of perinatal social support on maternal depression: a marginal structural modelling approach.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Depression in the perinatal period, during pregnancy or within 1 year of childbirth, imposes a high burden on women with rippling effects through her and her child's life course. Social support may be an important protective factor, but the complex bidirectional relationship with depression, alongside a paucity of longitudinal explorations, leaves much unknown about critical windows of social support exposure across the perinatal period and causal impacts on future depressive episodes.

Methods

This study leverages marginal structural models to evaluate associations between longitudinal patterns of perinatal social support and subsequent maternal depression at 6 and 12 months postpartum. In a cohort of women in rural Pakistan (n=780), recruited in the third trimest

SUBMITTER: Hagaman A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8434957 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature