Depression Trajectories in Women – A Developmental-ecological approach (GM03)

Depression in women is considered as a vital cause of disability among childbearing women. Changes in multilevel factors, including personal, family, and cultural factors have been associated with depression during perinatal period as well as midlife developmental period. However, prior studies on the association between depressive symptoms and environmental factors have predominantly utilized a correlation index at each single time point that usually failed to take time-varying depressive into account; these investigations may therefore not adequately reflect the changes in depressive symptoms and related factors that occur across time. In this proposal we plan to conduct a prospective cohort study on 200 preinatal women, as well as a retrospective cohort study on midlife women using a 10-year longitudinal study that have already collected for investigation on midlife health. In the first year, a baseline cohort of perinatal women will be established. The subjects will be followed-up from 28 weeks gestation age till postpartum 3 months. A total of 200 women will be included. We also prepared and started the analyses on the midlife women cohort. In the last year we will complete the follow-up assessment on the perinatal women. Trajectory analysis as well as multilevel modeling will be used to estimate the contributions of personal, family, and cultural factors to changes in women depression over time.