Introduction: This paper evaluated the relationships between the dyadic adjustment of expectant parents and prenatal maternal and paternal depression. Method: Participants were 98 couples who were expectant parents in the third trimester of pregnancy. Most couples (97%) were primiparous. Participants' prenatal depression, psychiatric symptomatology, perinatal affectivity, and dyadic adjustment were evaluated. Results: Hierarchical regression and relative weight analyses showed the importance of various marital adjustment dimensions in predicting prenatal maternal and paternal depression. In particular, the marital relationship variables of dyadic consensus and affective expression of both partners was related to prenatal depression in expectant mothers, with the relationship even stronger in expectant fathers. The results suggested that for both partners, perception of marital relationship quality contributes to the development of depressive symptoms in new mothers and fathers to a greater degree than the single perception of one partner. Discussion: Clinically, the results suggest that clinicians should focus on partner relationships in the perinatal period. The provision of psychological interventions to improve a couple's functioning may help to protect new parents against depressive symptomatology.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.