ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Glob. Women’s Health
Sec. Women's Mental Health
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fgwh.2025.1484834
Postpartum common mental disorders and its associated factors in eastern Ethiopia: A community-based cross-sectional study
Provisionally accepted
Dejene Tesfaye*
Tadesse Misgana*
Berhe Gebremichael
Daniel Alemu
Dawit Tamiru
Adisu Birhanu Weldesenbet
Mandaras Tariku Walde
Merga Dheresa- Haramaya University, Harar, Ethiopia
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Introduction: Common Mental Disorders (CMD) cause marked emotional distress and interfere with daily function among postpartum women and the negative attitude towards mental disorders and their treatments prevents the women from seeking mental health care. Very little is known about CMD among women, especially in the postpartum period. This study, therefore, aimed at assessing the prevalence of CMD and its associated factors among women in the postpartum period at Kersa and Haramaya HDSS sites, in eastern Ethiopia, from July 01, 2021, to February 28, 2022.Methods: This study employed a community-based cross-sectional study design with the quantitative method and was conducted in Kersa and Haramaya Health and Demographic Surveillance Sites (HDSS) among 1016 postpartum women. A structured questionnaire was used to collect the data through face-to-face interviews about the variables related to socio-demographic and economic, clinical, psychosocial, substance use and obstetric complications characteristics.The CMD was assessed by using the Self-Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ-20). A bivariable and multivariable logistic regression was done. All the variables with a p-value of < 0.25 in bivariable logistic regression were taken to multivariable logistic regression. Variables with a p-value < 0.05 in the multivariable regression were declared statistically significant associations. The odds ratio and 95% CI were used to show the strength of the association.The prevalence of postpartum CMD was 23.84% (95%CI: 21.21-26.47). Among pregnant women who had CMD, only 103 27.7% had CMD and persisted to the postpartum period. Poor social support, (aOR: 1.88, 95%CI: 1.28-2.74), wealth index in the first quantile, (aOR: 1.59, 95%CI: 1.06-2.39), presence of obstetric complication, 7.74(95%CI: 4.38-13.69) and Cesarean section mode of delivery, (aOR:5.01 95%CI: 1.14-22.13) were the factors showed statistically significant association with postpartum CMD.One in every four study participants had CMD, which was higher than studies conducted in Ethiopia among postpartum women. Social support, wealth index, obstetric complications and mode of delivery were the factors with statistically significant associations.Postpartum women may benefit from the early diagnosis and treatment of CMD at the community and the primary health care level, and the integration of mental health care into maternal health services.
Keywords: Common mental disorder, Postpartum, social support, wealth index, intimate partner violence, community-based, Associated factors, Eastern Ethiopia
Received: 22 Aug 2024; Accepted: 21 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Tesfaye, Misgana, Gebremichael, Alemu, Tamiru, Weldesenbet, Walde and Dheresa. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Dejene Tesfaye, Haramaya University, Harar, Ethiopia
Tadesse Misgana, Haramaya University, Harar, Ethiopia
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