Research on the relationship between the sleep features of pregnant women and depressive symptoms

Aim: The aim of this research is to determine the relationship between the sleep features of pregnant women and depressive symptoms. Material and Method: The research was planned as a hospital-based descriptive and correlational study. The universe of the research consisted of pregnant women who applied to the Malatya State Hospital Campus Beydağı obstetric polyclinic between 1 December 2014 and 30 March 2015 and whose gestational week was more than 28 weeks. The sampling, on the other hand, consisted of 436 pregnant women complying with the inclusion criteria and having the power to represent the universe by 98% out of 95% confidence interval, determined according to the power analysis, with 0.05 influence quantity and 5% level of significance. The Participant Description Form developed by the researcher by utilizing the literature, Women's Health Initiative Insomnia Scale, and Beck Depression Scale, were used in the data collection. The data were collected by means of face-to-face interviews on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The data were evaluated using the descriptive statistics, ANOVA, t test in independent groups, Post hoc Tukey test, chi-square test and Cronbach's Alpha reliability analysis test. Findings: It was determined that 36% of the pregnant women in the research had insomnia symptoms, and 61.9% of them had depressive symptoms. Depressive symptoms were observed more (44.4%) in the pregnant women having insomnia problems (p<0.001). It was observed that the depressive symptom rate increased as the daily average sleep duration of the pregnant women decreased (p<0.001). Furthermore, it was found that the pregnant women whose post-pregnancy sleep was different from their pre-pregnancy sleep, and who woke up as not relaxed had more depressive symptoms (p<0.001). However, no significant relationship was detected between the snoring habits of the pregnant women, their sleeping in the day, and their taking measures for insomnia, and observation of depressive symptoms (p>0.05). Result: It was determined that more than one-third of the pregnant women had insomnia, and more than half of them had depressive symptoms. Moreover, it was observed that those having an insomnia problem had more depressive symptoms. Keywords: Depressive symptoms, pregnancy, sleep features, Women' s Health Initiative Insomnia Rating Scale, Beck Depression Inventory.