ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health

Sec. Public Health Policy

Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1566240

This article is part of the Research TopicPublic Health Approaches to Ending Violence Against Women: Global Campaigns, Policy, and Community ActionView all 3 articles

Global, regional, and national burden of depressive disorders among women of childbearing age, 1990-2021: a Joinpoint regression analysis for the global burden of disease study 2021

Provisionally accepted
Lulu  YangLulu YangYuting  LuoYuting LuoQiuhan  BiQiuhan BiBinbin  LuoBinbin Luo*
  • The Second People's Hospital of Hefei, Hefei, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Depressive disorders, as a mental disorder, are prevalent among women, particularly women of childbearing age (WCBA). However, comprehensive epidemiological studies on this population appear to be limited globally. To investigate the longitudinal epidemiology of depressive disorders among women aged 15-49 years worldwide.Estimates of annual incidence, prevalence, and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) of depressive disorders for seven age groups (15-49 years) of women were extracted from the 2021 Global Burden of Disease Study, including 95% uncertainty intervals (UI). Age-standardized incidence rates (ASIR), age-standardized prevalence rates (ASPR), and age-standardized DALYs rates (ASDR) of depressive disorders in this population were estimated using direct age-standardization. Joinpoint regression analysis was employed to assess temporal trends in depressive disorders among this cohort from 1990 to 2021.From 1990 to 2021, ASIR, ASPR, and ASDR of depressive disorders among WCBA increased globally. Regionally, incidence, prevalence, and DALYs rates rose in high-income areas such as North America, while a decline was observed in East Asia. Among 204 countries, Greenland, the United States of America, and Greece reported the highest ASIR, ASPR, and ASDR in 2021, with Mexico exhibiting the fastest increase. Additionally, from 2019 to 2021, most countries and regions worldwide experienced a continuous rise in the burden of depressive disorders among WCBA.Our study provides accurate age-standardized estimates, facilitating effective comparisons across different regions. We found a sharp increase in the global burden of depressive disorders among WCBA in almost all countries and regions after 2019, highlighting an urgent need for governments to develop flexible health policies to mitigate the escalating threat of depressive disorders in this demographic.

Keywords: depressive disorders, Women of childbearing age, Global Burden of Disease study, Joinpoint regression analysis, Epidemiology

Received: 24 Jan 2025; Accepted: 25 Apr 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Yang, Luo, Bi and Luo. 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: Binbin Luo, The Second People's Hospital of Hefei, Hefei, China

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