Introduction and Objective: The pregnancy and childbirth described as a development crisis holds an important place in woman's life. While many women is easily adapting to physiological, psychological and social changes occurring with pregnancy and birth, the problems at different levels can be seen in some women. Especially anxiety and depression from these problems can adversely affect women during the pregnancy, the delivery and the postpartum period. This study was conducted to determine women's pre and post-labor stage anxiety and depression levels and influencing factors.
Materials and Methods: This study made as cross-sectional descriptive, was conducted in the delivery room and postpartum service of the State Hospital for three months. Sample was composed of 112 women. Personal Information Form and HAD (Hospital Anxiety and Depression) Scale was applied to the pregnants agreed to participate in research by the researchers, and their anxiety and depression levels were assessed. HAD scale was applied twice to the pregnants when they was accepted to the delivery room and before leaving the hospital after birth. To determine the association between variables were the Student t-test, Kruskal Wallis Analysis of Variance, Mann Whitney U testfor quantitative data. Level of significance was taken at p-values less than 0.05.
Results: The average age of pregnants is 25.57 ± 5.80 years. It was determined that period of study for 67.0% of pregnant women was 12 years and below, 54.5% of them lived in nuclear family, 92.0% did not work and 92.0% was in a good relationship with her husband. It was found that 38.4 % of the pregnants experienced third pregnancy and above, 43.8% of them had no living children, 92.9% was regularly followed and 78.6% wanted the pregnancy. It was found that pre-labor anxiety and depression scores of pregnant women (respectively 9.41±4.17; 7.62±4.09) was significantly higher than (respectively t=4.802, pË‚0.001; t=7.886, pË‚0.001) post-labor anxiety and depression scores (respectively 7.66±3.21; 5.39±3.61). Â
Conclusion: The pre-labor anxiety and depression scores of pregnant women is considerably higher than the post-labor period. Anxiety and depression directly affects the maternal and infant health during pregnancy and in the postpartum period, therefore the possible problems must be found by determining the levels and causes of anxiety and depression.
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