Socioeconomic Status and Postpartum Depression

The goal of the experiment

The goal of this experiment is to determine how socioeconomic position affects the risk factors for Postpartum Depression. The second goal is to investigate the role of socioeconomic factors in the level of Postpartum Depression that women suffer after giving birth.

Participants

Participants in the study will be chosen from among women who have just given birth or are less than a year away from doing so. They will be chosen at random from both low and high-income families. There are those hospitals that serve different classes, low-income, and high-income, women in the society as far as childbirth is concerned. This will make enrollment of participants easier.

Sample size

A sample of more than 200 women is targeted for the interview in this study. They will be examined on their level of income and the postpartum depression at three or four months after delivering their babies.

Measures of the result

The level of depression will be measured using Epidemiological-Depression Scale.

Result

The level of postpartum depression will be rated using the Epidemiological-Depression Scale, and the result evaluated as per the socioeconomic status of women participants. The aim of this is to assess if there are differences in the postpartum depression and how these factors contribute to such disparity among the high and low-income classes in the society.

Discussion

The result will be discussed to show the importance of these socioeconomic factors and the role they are playing in postpartum depression. This will be evaluated about the initial hypothesis that the level of socioeconomic status determines the level of postpartum depression among women.

Conclusion

A conclusion will be made as to whether socioeconomic status affects the level of postpartum depression as stated in the initial hypothesis.

References

The sources of ideas and various information about the project will be shown on the last page if the research paper.

Key Words: Postpartum depression, socioeconomic status

Introduction

Postpartum depression, a mood disorder that usually comes with the birth of a child, is characterized by the feeling of extreme anxiety, sadness as well as exhaustion, which make most women unable to carry out their daily chores. After a woman has delivered a child, there are usually changes in the level of hormones such as progesterone. This lead to alteration in chemical composition in their brain causing various mood disorders such as mood swings that later develops to Postpartum Depression(Abbasi et al. 2013). Pregnancy is a critical point for women and the experience they go through in the whole period usually leaves them with lots of health problems such psychological disorders. When they finally deliver the baby, postpartum period, their painful experience might not end but continue from here. This is usually about 12 months after giving birth.

However, the level of this disorder is associated with the socioeconomic status of a person. These factors are education, income, employment, and care from family members. The mentioned socioeconomic factors have been found to relate to the level of stress that one can undergo especially periods after delivery. When a mother has a well caring family and relatives, they might find it easy coping with Postpartum Depression(Dennis et al.2013). Also, when a woman has low income, or the family lives in poverty, their Postpartum Depression might be high as they might be unable to afford a lot of healthcare that they would need during this period. Higher income usually provides a patient with better choices whereas low income leaves them stranded as to which option would be cheaper to them. This increases risks of Postpartum Depression (Scheyer and Urizar, 2016). This study will evaluate and determine how much the socioeconomic status contributes to the postpartum depression symptoms in mothers.

Methods

Participants

The participants on this project will be women that have delivered their young ones within the last ten months. Two hundred women will be interviewed about socioeconomic status, and the Epidemiological-Depression Scale measure’s discussed. The participants will be of the ages between 24 to 34 years old. The will be randomly selected in a pool of patients in two different hospitals. There are these healthcare centers that serve the low-income earners in the society as well as the hospitals that serve high-income earners(Dolbier et al.2013). Once the potential participants have been identified, they will be given some empty, and written papers to chose. These papers have numbers from one to two hundred and also blank ones that sum up to the number of potential recruits. Only those that will pick these numbers will be taken to participate in the study. The random sampling is the best for this project as it helps minimize the possibility of having a biased data. Also, this will be aided by choosing different hospitals that are categorized under these two classes, high and low income.

Also, among the participants, nurses who take care of these women after they have delivered their babies will be interviewed. A total of 40 nurses will be randomly selected from these different hospitals.

Materials

The materials that will be used in this study include the Epidemiological-Depression Scale that will help in ascertaining the disparity in the level of postpartum depression symptoms in mothers that have the different socioeconomic background. Questionnaires will also be used as well as recorders in data collection. Participants will be interviewed in their respective health care centers.

Measures

Race and ethnicity will be measured using a self identification question on the first page of the questionnaire. Individuals will asked to mention their ethnicity as either black, white or Hispanic.

To measure poverty level and how it affects the Postpartum depression, questions will be asked regarding the household income and the assets they own as well as the number of meals they can afford in a day. The income of the household will be evaluated concerning the number of members that depends on it and also the children to be supported by the same income.

Also, the subjective socioeconomic status will be captured using MacArthur relative social standing in various SES indicators.

The symptoms of Postpartum depression will be measured using questions that will ask about what the patient felt after giving birth such as sad, miserable, difficulty in sleeping or so unhappy in the last seven days. Each question will be answered on a scale of 4 points showing the level of a given symptom. The thought of harming one’s self will be among the questions that will be answered and used to rate the level of stress and postpartum depression in participants. All the questions concerning the experience that these women went through after delivery will be captured and result grouped according to their level of income as will be given by poverty measures as well as their race and ethnicity (Katon, Russo and Gavin 2014).

Design of the study

The study design will be qualitative and quantitative methods of research. Qualitative will be used to assess the in-depth feeling of the women participants as far as their socioeconomic statuses are concerned. On the other hand, the quantitative method will help give the numerical data that can be used to prove that disparity exists in the level of depression among women from different socioeconomic status.

Procedures

The first step will be to identify health care centers that serve diverse economic classes of women. These will identify the different geographical region to avoid biases in the data collected. The hospitals will then be notified of the intended study and how it will be carried out using their patients. After that, the participants will be sampled upon their consent to be part of this research. Those who will have consented or showed a willingness to participate will then be randomly selected to come up with the final list of participants. The in-depth interviews will be done with nurses who will give their experience on the matter of postpartum depression symptoms as far as socioeconomic factors are concerned.

Results

The level of stress across different social class will be measured, and the result presented or discussion. It s expected to have a different degree of stress that will be attributed to their level of income and other social factors in the society(Tiedje, 2009).

The demographic of participants by race will be shown which includes their age, race, and level of income. This will be analyzed regarding the stress level to see if there is any connection between the level of stress and the income or any other demographic factors. The result of the scale will be shown and analyzed with 1 showing a low level of stress and 4 showing high-stress level. Each group and their socioeconomic factors will have the result of their stress level against them. Also, the sample characteristic will make part of the results analysis. These include their age, their education, and their race or ethnicity(El-Ibiary et al.2013). This help to relate some causes by the cultural practices of beliefs of these different races.

Discussions

The result will be discussed according to what has been observed. The relationship between race and ethnicity and postpartum depression will be part of the discussion of the customs, and cultural beliefs and practices would have some influence on these symptoms. Also, the level of income that enables a person to be able to afford the needed items and care after delivery will be discussed according to the result of the study. Further, age, association, and interaction with relatives will also be discussed to make a point of the socioeconomic factors and how they cause postpartum depression. Any other observed factor during the interviews and study will be part of the discussion. Moreover, the limitations and requirement of further research after this study will be described according to the result of the research (Hein et al.2014). Each demographic characteristic will be discussed by how it affects the postpartum depression depending on the result found.

Conclusion

A conclusion will be made after discussion. It will show a point as to how socioeconomic factors affect postpartum depression. It is a point taken after several factors will have been checked. Some of the circumstances that will be looked at are whether the research question has been properly answered. The conclusion will give a summary of the roadmap to getting the question answered. Postpartum depression has the association with several socioeconomic factors that are said facilitate or reduce it. For example, when there is low income in the household against a high number of children or dependents, there is the likelihood of high stress level to the new mother as they might not be able to afford several items that would make them and their baby comfortable. Also, the ethnicity and race are expected to influence postpartum depression in that the beliefs and practices of these different ethnic group would contribute to either lowering or increase of postpartum depression. An example is where some culture; the new mother is taken care of by the other women in the society, and everything is done to them. These are aimed at helping them cope with the stress of after delivery. This cannot be compared with a situation where the mother is alone and caring for herself and the baby. Obviously, they will be more stressed. Lastly, the sources of ideas used in the research will be acknowledged by citing each source to show its contribution to the research work.

References

Abbasi, S., Chuang, C. H., Dagher, R., Zhu, J., & Kjerulff, K. (2013). Unintended pregnancy and postpartum depression among first-time mothers. Journal of Women's Health, 22(5), 412-416.

Dennis, E. F., Webb, D. A., Lorch, S. A., Mathew, L., Bloch, J. R., & Culhane, J. F. (2012). Subjective social status and maternal health in a low income urban population. Maternal and child health journal, 16(4), 834-843.

Dolbier, C. L., Rush, T. E., Sahadeo, L. S., Shaffer, M. L., Thorp, J., & Community Child Health Network Investigators. (2013). Relationships of race and socioeconomic status to postpartum depressive symptoms in rural African American and non-Hispanic white women. Maternal and child health journal, 17(7), 1277-1287.

El-Ibiary, S. Y., Hamilton, S. P., Abel, R., Erdman, C. A., Robertson, P. A., & Finley, P. R. (2013). A pilot study evaluating genetic and environmental factors for postpartum depression. Innovations in clinical neuroscience, 10(9-10), 15.

Katon, W., Russo, J., & Gavin, A. (2014). Predictors of postpartum depression. Journal of women's health, 23(9), 753-759.

Hein, A., Rauh, C., Engel, A., Häberle, L., Dammer, U., Voigt, F., ... & Kornhuber, J. (2014). Socioeconomic status and depression during and after pregnancy in the Franconian Maternal Health Evaluation Studies (FRAMES). Archives of gynecology and obstetrics, 289(4), 755-763.

Scheyer, K., & Urizar, G. G. (2016). Altered stress patterns and increased risk for postpartum depression among low-income pregnant women. Archives of women's mental health, 19(2), 317-328.

Tiedje, L. B. (2009). The Prevalence of Postpartum Depression: The Relative Significance of Three Social Status Indices. MCN: The American Journal of Maternal/Child Nursing, 34(3), 196.