Abstract
Background: It is now well established that psychiatric disorders are common in pregnancy. The present study aimed at finding out the nature of mental health problems in antenatal women coming to a teaching hospital in Jalandhar, Punjab.
Material and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on fifty consecutive patients who came for antenatal check-up. The patients were asked to fill a self-structured two item questionnaire aiming to elicit the major mental health problem being faced by them and the Presumptive Stressful Life Events Scale besides a self-structured proforma for recording the socio-demographic variables. In the next stage, the patients who reported having one or more mental health problem, were administered Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS) and Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HARS) to assess for the severity of depression and anxiety.
Results: 66% women reported having one or more mental health problem. Irritability was the commonest symptom reported by 46% of the sample. Of the 33 patients evaluated on the HDRS, 32 (96.97%) had clinically significant depression. 23 (69.69%) patients were found to have clinically significant anxiety as per the scores on HARS.
Conclusions: The findings of our study underscore the need for psychiatric assessment of all antenatal women given the high prevalence of self-reported one or more mental health problems.
Key Words: Antenatal women, Depression, Anxiety, Stressful life events.
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Corresponding Author
Dr Amita Mahajan
Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Punjab Institute of Medical Sciences, Jalandhar, (Punjab)-144001
Contact: 9814516442, Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.18535/jmscr/v5i8.204
