OBJECTIVES

: To find the prevalence, risk factors/causes, knowledge and medication use in postpartum depressive patients attending Psychiatric OPD of a tertiary care hospital.

METHODS : The study is a descriptive cross-sectional study. In a three month period from July to November, about 217 postpartive women were interviewed to collect data in Manipal Teaching Hospital. The postpartive patients were interviewed using structured questionnaire to identify the prevalence, knowledge, medication use and risk factors for postpartum depression. The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale was used to screen for depression in the postnatal period.

RESULTS

The collected data was analyzed in MS Excel and SPSS version 20.Out of 217 patients,2.3% women were found to have EPDS score greater than 13 which means they were observed to have post-partum depression. The prevalence of post-partum depression was found to be 2.3%.The prevalence of post-partum depression according to this study was found less in comparison to other studies carried out in Nepal. All of the depressed patients were housewives. About 90.3% of women were found to have poor knowledge,8.8% had good knowledge and only 2 of them had satisfactory knowledge on PPD. The associated risk factors with post-partum depression were lack of family support and partner's support(p<0.005).

CONCLUSIONS

Women at high risk should be screened routinely for the assessment of PPD. Further studies needs to be carried out to find out the prevalence of ppd.