Postpartum depression is a common and complex phenomenon that can cause relevant negative outcomes for children, women and families. Existing literature highlights a wide range of risk factors. The main focus of this paper is to jointly investigate different types of risk factors (socio-demographic, psychopathological, relational, and related to labor and birth experience) in post-partum depression onset in women during first-child pregnancy, identifying which of these are the most important predictors. A cohort longitudinal study was conducted on 161 Italian nulliparous low-risk women (Mage = 31.63; SD = 4.88) without elective cesarean. Data was collected at three different times: Socio-demographic, prenatal anxiety and depression, and quality of close relationship network (with mother, father and partner, and the prenatal attachment to child) were assessed at T1 (week 31–32 of gestation); clinical data on labor and childbirth (mode and typology of delivery, duration of labor, duration of eventual administration of epidural analgesia, and child's APGAR index at birth) were registered at T2 (the day of childbirth); and the degree of post-natal depression symptomatology was measured at T3 (1 month after birth). Postpartum depression is associated with several risk factors (woman's age, woman's prenatal psychopathological characteristics, the level of prenatal attachment to child, the quality of romantic relationship, and some clinical delivery difficulties). Overall, the level of prenatal attachment to child was the most important predictor of post-partum depression. These findings emphasize the very important role of prenatal attachment for the onset of postpartum depression and the need to promote adequate and targeted prevention interventions. Limitations, strengths, and theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.
The present study aims to assess adolescents' expectations of the future after bone cancer treatment and to investigate in greater depth the relationship between expectations of the future, resilience and coping strategies. Thirty-two adolescents with cancer experience (11-20 years old), who had a complete first remission at least 1 month after the end of successful treatment, were requested to respond to the Expectations for Future Scale, the Ego-Resiliency Scale and Coping Strategy Indicators. Forty-eight gender- and age-matched control adolescents were randomly selected from a normative sample (NORMs). Adolescents with cancer experience had more optimistic expectations of the future and were less open to experience compared to NORMs. They had lower global ego-resiliency, higher impulse control and tended to use more avoidance strategies than NORMs. In adolescents with cancer experience, expectations of the future were negatively related to global ego-resiliency and positively related to impulse control and avoidance. Expectations of the future were positively correlated with global ego-resiliency and openness to new experience and negatively correlated with impulse control in NORMs. Patients' positive expectations of the future may relate to positive adjustment to cancer events; however, they could also express unrealistic optimism.
Results suggest that physicians can benefit from knowing the phases that infertile couples experience during pregnancy because these can serve as a framework to use in monitoring their transition to parenthood and in planning psychological support and health interventions for them.
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