Dyadic coping and dyadic adjustment in couples with women with high depressive symptoms during pregnancy

ABSTRACT

Objective: The present study aimed to compare dyadic coping (DC) and dyadic adjustment in couples in which the woman was experiencing high levels of depressive symptoms and in couples in which the woman presented minimal or no depressive symptoms.

Background: Pregnancy may be considered a situation of dyadic stress, during which the presence of high levels of depressive symptoms may impair the ways couples cope together with stress; however, this topic has not yet been studied.

Methods: Pregnant women and their partners (n = 289 couples) completed the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, the Dyadic Coping Inventory, and the Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale during the second trimester of pregnancy.

Results: Couples in which the woman was experiencing high levels of depressive symptoms (n = 57) reported less DC enacted by oneself and by the partner (particularly, less supportive and more negative DC), common DC and overall d5yadic adjustment, compared to couples in which the woman was not experiencing high levels of depressive symptoms (n = 232).

Conclusion: These findings highlight the need to assess couples’ dyadic adjustment and DC strategies, which is particularly important when women screened positive for high levels of depressive symptoms during pregnancy.

KEYWORDS:

• Pregnancy
• couples
• depressive symptoms
• dyadic coping
• dyadic adjustment

Acknowledgements

This study is part of the research project ‘A web-based cognitive-behavioural intervention to prevent postpartum depression: A dyadic and multidimensional approach’, developed within the research group Relationships, Development & Health of the R&D Unit Center for Research in Neuropsychology and Cognitive-Behavioral Intervention of the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Coimbra. Stephanie Alves is supported by a PhD Scholarship from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) (SFRH/BD/102717/2014). Ana Fonseca is supported by a Post-doctoral Scholarship from FCT (SFRH/BPD/93996/2013). Marco Pereira is a FCT Researcher (IF/00402/2014). The authors wish to thank the Director of the Obstetrics Service A – Maternity Daniel de Matos (CHUC, EPE), the obstetricians, the nurses and other relevant professionals that enabled the sample collection as well as all the couples that participated in the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia [IF/00402/2014,SFRH/BD/102717/2014,SFRH/BPD/93996/2013].