Pre- and postnatal depression and coping:: A comparative approach

Background: The assessment of perinatal depressions and coping style. Methods: With depression scales (EPDS, GHQ.12) and Carver's BriefCope, the authors compared the prevalence rates of pre and postnatal depression in a cohort of 277 French women. Results: Their work revealed very high levels of prenatal depression (almost 20%) and less important but nonetheless sizeable rates (11%) of postnatal depression, making such perinatal depressions a major public health concern. The coping styles proposed in Carver's public health BriefCope questionnaire make it possible to significantly differentiate during these two periods between depressive women and their non-depressed counterparts. Conclusions: This enables us to underline factors of risk and protection suggesting the importance of setting up compensatory and preventive systems and evaluating their pertinence in the framework of future research. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.