Perinatal psychological well-being in women with zero postnatal anxiety-depressive symptoms scores: a retrospective descriptive study

ABSTRACT

Background: A total absence of psychological symptoms during pregnancy or postpartum period is not common. Although there are some considerations on zero scores detected by EPDS, no thorough analysis is currently present in the literature of the eventuality and meaning of a total absence of postpartum symptoms following the compilation of two or more self-report symptom questionnaires.

Methods: In a sample of 960 Italian women, three groups of 31 subjects are defined retrospectively by scores on the EPDS-GHQ12: women with ‘zero’, ‘lower’, and ‘higher’ postnatal symptomatology. The psychological well-being of these groups was compared as detected in pregnancy and after childbirth by PWB questionnaire.

Results: Higher and excessive scores in Environmental mastery dimension connote the profile of women with a total absence of postpartum anxiety-depression symptoms. Positive relations with other dimension were less characterising, but it should be noted as a distinctive trait in the ‘zero’ symptoms postnatal symptomatology group. In the same ‘zero’ group, the scores of the six PWB questionnaire dimensions – except Personal growth – are all higher than the scores obtained by women in the general population.

Conclusion: The atypical self-reported perinatal mood condition present in the ‘zero’ symptoms group have currently unknown clinical significance

KEYWORDS:

• Perinatal psychiatry
• psychological well-being
• screening
• postpartum depression
• postnatal anxiety

Acknowledgments

This article is based on a poster presented at the National Congress of the Italian Association of Psychology, section of Clinical Psychology, Messina, September 25–27, 2015.

The authors would like to thank Martina Muraro for data collection, Stephen Matthey for valuable suggestions, Donna Wawrykow Spanu for the grammatical and stylistic correctness of the English language, and the Staff of Corso di Accompagnamento alla Nascita, Consultorio Familiare Service of Monselice and Este, Azienda ULSS 6 Euganea, Regione Veneto, Italy.

Disclosure statement

The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.

None of the authors has a political, personal, intellectual, commercial, financial or religious conflict of interest, and/or other relation to manufacturers of pharmaceuticals, laboratory supplies and/or medical devices or to commercial providers of medically related services.

While this retrospective descriptive study is based on electronic records of Consultorio Familiare Service of South Padua District, Azienda ULSS 6 Euganea, Veneto Region, National Health Service, Italy, the opinions expressed by the authors do not represent the views of Azienda ULSS 6 Euganea, Azienda ULSS 8 Berica or University of Padua.

Human and animal rights and informed consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee of human experimentations (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent was obtained from all women for being included in this retrospective descriptive study.

Additional information

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.