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. 2018 Nov 8:24:1192.
doi: 10.4102/sajpsychiatry.v24i0.1192. eCollection 2018.

Level of awareness and treatment of anxiety and depression during pregnancy in southeast Nigeria

Ezeme M Sunday  1 , Paul C Okoli  1 , Vincent O Dinwoke  2
Affiliations

Level of awareness and treatment of anxiety and depression during pregnancy in southeast Nigeria

Ezeme M Sunday et al. S Afr J Psychiatr. .

Abstract

Background: Anxiety and depressive disorders are somewhat masked by features of pregnancy; hence many women are ignorant of them and are untreated.

Aim: To determine the level of awareness and treatment of anxiety and depression in pregnancy.

Setting: The study was carried out at the antenatal clinic of Enugu State University Teaching Hospital, Enugu, Nigeria.

Method: This was a cross-sectional and descriptive study of 200 pregnant women in consecutive attendance of the antenatal clinic using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and a sociodemographic questionnaire.

Results: Of the participants, 23.5% had anxiety and/or depression, 7.5% of them were aware of their condition and only 0.5% of all the participants or 6.7% of those who were aware of their problem received treatment.

Conclusion: Anxiety and depression are prevalent among pregnant women. Because of overlap of symptoms of anxiety and depression with those of pregnancy, the awareness is very low; hence many of them suffer immensely without treatment.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationship(s) that may have inappropriately affected their report of the findings of this research.

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