Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Oct 1;22(1):735.
doi: 10.1186/s12884-022-05045-8.

An examination of the association between marital status and prenatal mental disorders using linked health administrative data

Asres Bedaso  1   2 , Jon Adams  3 , Wenbo Peng  3 , Fenglian Xu  4 , David Sibbritt  3
Affiliations

An examination of the association between marital status and prenatal mental disorders using linked health administrative data

Asres Bedaso et al. BMC Pregnancy Childbirth. .

Abstract

Background: International research shows marital status impacts the mental health of pregnant women, with prenatal depression and anxiety being higher among non-partnered women. However, there have been few studies examining the relationship between marital status and prenatal mental disorders among Australian women.

Methods: This is a population-based retrospective cohort study using linked data from the New South Wales (NSW) Perinatal Data Collection (PDC) and Admitted Patients Data Collection (APDC). The cohort consists of a total of 598,599 pregnant women with 865,349 admissions. Identification of pregnant women for mental disorders was conducted using the 10th version International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Australian Modification (ICD-10-AM). A binary logistic regression model was used to estimate the relationship between marital status and prenatal mental disorder after adjusting for confounders.

Results: Of the included pregnant women, 241 (0.04%), 107 (0.02%) and 4359 (0.5%) were diagnosed with depressive disorder, anxiety disorder, and self-harm, respectively. Non-partnered pregnant women had a higher likelihood of depressive disorder (Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) = 2.75; 95% CI: 2.04, 3.70) and anxiety disorder (AOR = 3.16, 95% CI: 2.03, 4.91), compared with partnered women. Furthermore, the likelihood of experiencing self-harm was two times higher among non-partnered pregnant women (AOR = 2.00; 95% CI: 1.82, 2.20) than partnered pregnant women.

Conclusions: Non-partnered marital status has a significant positive association with prenatal depressive disorder, anxiety disorder and self-harm. This suggests it would be highly beneficial for maternal health care professionals to screen non-partnered pregnant women for prenatal mental health problems such as depression, anxiety and self-harm.

Keywords: Anxiety disorder; Data linkage; Depressive disorder; Marital status; Pregnancy; Self-harm.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Study population and data linkage between PDC and APDC
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Rich-Edwards JW, Kleinman K, Abrams A, Harlow BL, McLaughlin TJ, Joffe H, et al. Sociodemographic predictors of antenatal and postpartum depressive symptoms among women in a medical group practice. J Epidemiol Community Health. 2006;60(3):221–227. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Dunkel SC. Psychological science on pregnancy: stress processes, biopsychosocial models, and emerging research issues. Annu Rev Psychol. 2011;62:531–558. - PubMed
    1. Say L, Chou D, Gemmill A, Tunçalp Ö, Moller A-B, Daniels J, et al. Global causes of maternal death: a WHO systematic analysis. Lancet Glob Health. 2014;2(6):e323–e333. - PubMed
    1. Dadi AF, Miller ER, Bisetegn TA, Mwanri L. Global burden of antenatal depression and its association with adverse birth outcomes: an umbrella review. BMC Public Health. 2020;20(1):173. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Leigh B, Milgrom J. Risk factors for antenatal depression, postnatal depression and parenting stress. BMC Psychiatry. 2008;8:24. - PMC - PubMed