Investigation of the relationship between maternal depressive symptoms, maternal satisfaction, and maternal attachment with the structural equality model

INTRODUCTION AND AIM: Motherhood is an extremely complex process and one of the most significant developmental periods in a woman's life, involving a wide range of experiences and emotions. The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between maternal depressive symptoms, maternal satisfaction, and maternal attachment with a structural equation model. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This was a descriptive, cross-sectional and correlational study including 231 mothers with infants aged 1-4 months who visited the Pediatrics Polyclinics of two different Training and Research Hospitals in the Marmara Region. The data were collected using the Family and Child Descriptive Information Form, Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), Being a Mother Scale (BAM-13), and Maternal Attachment Inventory. The data were analyzed using the IBM SPSS Statistics 25 program and the structural equation model was examined with SmartPLS-3. RESULTS: The mean age of the mothers was 28.47±5.04 years,48.5% of mothers graduated from secondary school, and most of them (77.5%) were housewives. According to demographic characteristics, a statistically significant negative, and weak correlation was found between the age at marriage and the age of motherhood and the BAM-13 scales, respectively (r=-.237, r=-.175, p<0.05) There was a statistically positive moderate correlation between BAM-13 and PHQ-9 (r=0.568, p<0.05), and a moderately negative correlation between BAM-13 and the Maternal Attachment Scale (r=- 0.316, p<0.05). Furthermore, a statistically negative and weak correlation was detected between the PHQ-9 and the Maternal Attachment Scale (r=-0.217, p<0.05). As a result of the structural equation model analysis, being a mother had a statistically significant and negative effect on maternal attachment (β=-0.533, p<0.05). CONCLUSION: The findings of this study revealed that maternal attachment rose along with a decrease in depressive symptoms and an increase in maternal satisfaction. Moreover, maternal satisfaction decreased as maternal depressive symptoms increased in this study. Keywords: maternal attachment, maternal satisfaction, maternal depressive symptoms