Abstract:
Background: Depression is the most prevalent psychiatric disorder during pregnancy. It is not
only common and chronic among women throughout the world but also a principal source of
disability in pregnant women. Prenatal depression has contributed to prematurity and low birth
weight. The scarce information and limited attention to the problem might aggravate the
consequence of the problem and can limit the interventions to be taken.
Objective: To assess the prevalence and factors associated with prenatal depression among
pregnant women in Babile district in public health institutions, Babile, Ethiopia.
Methods: Health facility based quantitative cross-sectional study was conducted from October 25,
2021, to November 25, 2021. A total of 329 pregnant women were selected by using systematic
sampling technique. Health care professional were collected data through face-to-face interviews
on socio demographic, obstetric, psychosocial characteristics, and depressive symptoms.
Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) and Oslo Social Support Scale (OSS-3) were used
to asses’ depressive symptoms and social support respectively. Descriptive analyses were
conducted using frequency tables and graphs. Binary and multiple logistic regression were used
for analysis. Finally variable with p-value less than 0.05 were declared as having statistical
association.
Results. The prevalence of prenatal depression was 23.2%. The mean age of the respondents was
23.82 ± (SD = 6.65) years When adjusted for the effect of potential confounding variables, being
in age group of 15–24 years (AOR=2.6;95%CI:1.09,6.93), previous pregnancy complication
(AOR=2.4; 95%CI:1.18,5.04), unplanned pregnancy (AOR=3.4;95%CI:1.6,7.4) show statistically
associated with prenatal depression.
Conclusion: The study has shown that the prevalence of prenatal depression was high and
associated with multiple psychosocial, clinical, and obstetric factors. Therefore, screening
pregnant women for depression and the provision of necessary mental health services is
recommended to mitigate the adverse health outcome of the problem.
