The effect of childbirth education during pregnancy, percieved social support, and socio-demographic factors on prenatal and postpartum depression

The purpose of the study was to examine the effect of childbirth education during pregnancy, perceived social support, and socio-demographic factors on Prenatal and Postpartum Depression. This study was conducted with a total of 110 women who were pregnant during the research period and women who had completed the delivery within four weeks. The participants were selected by probability-based sampling methods with simple random sampling and on volutary basis from different regions of Turkey and some of them had taken childbirth education during pregnancy and some of them had not. Three different data collection instruments were used in this study which is designed as a "screening model". The first one is Sociodemographic Information Form (SIF) prepared by the researcher to collect the sociodemographic information of participants. The second one is the Edinburgh Postpartum Depression Scale (EPDS), which was used to measure the risk of depression. Finally, the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) was used to measure participants' perceieved social support. As a result of the study, there was no statistically significant difference in the perception of the Edinburgh Postpartum Depression Scale of participants who did or did not attend childbirth education during prgnancy. However, social support and some of sociodemographic factors such as educational status, occupation, the people who they lived with at home, and the number of children they had were found to have a statistically significant difference on participants' perception of the Edinburgh Postpartum Depression Scale.