Examination of marital satisfaction and self-esteem in postpartum depression

Objective: The period of pgregnancy and postpartum is a period of physical, psychological and social changes on women. Although most women cope with all these changes in a healthy way, the same thing can not be said for all the women. One of the problems seen on postnatal women is postpartum depression. The hormanal changes, the change in the family order, the responsibilities of having a child are all the criteria for a postpartum depression to occur. Postpartum depression bears several risk factors. The aim of this study is the comparison of the groups with/ without postpartum depression risk, and investigating the relation of self-esteem, multidimensional scale of perceived socail support, marital saticfaction, and determining the risk factors. Method: The study has been carried out on 205 women who gave birth in the recent one year in Samsun Liman Hospital and Ünye Out Patients Clinic Health Center. Sociodemographic Properties and Information Form, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, Dyadic Adjusment Scale, Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Marital Saticfaction, Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, have been used on women in this study. All the data obtained through this study have been analyzed usin SPSS for Windows 22.0 program. For one determination of risk factor, logistic regression analysis has been used. Results: As the result of the findings obtained, a significant relation has been found for postpartum depression with the level of education, income, depression history, planned and unplanned pregnancy, psychological and biological problems of having a baby, family support and adjusment to being a mother. Self-esteem, perceived social support and dyadic adjusment have been lower in women with postpartum depression. Marital satisfaction, self-esteem and social support levels of women who have risk of postpartum depression are found lower than women who have not risk of postpartum depression. Depression history, unplanned pregnancy, psychological and biological problems having a baby are found statistical higher in women who have risk of postpartum depression. Conclusion: According to result of the study, educational status, past depression history, self-esteem and perceived social support constitute risk factors for postpartum depression. A significant relation has been observed between postpartum depression and low self-esteem, insufficient perveived social support and insufficient dyadic adjusment.