Model predicts postnatal depression
VALENCIA, Spain, Sept. 21 (UPI) — Spanish researchers say they have developed a model to predict postnatal depression.
The study, published in Methods of Information in Medicine, says the predictive power of their model of mothers’ risks for developing depression in the months following childbirth is 80 percent.
『Now it needs clinical evaluation, and for psychiatrists to start to test it directly on patients in order to study the true potential of these tools,』 lead author Salvador Tortajada of the Polytechnic University of Valencia in Spain said in a statement.
The researchers examined 1,397 Spanish women who gave birth from December 2003 to October 2004 in seven hospitals in Spain. They used a type of modeling they call artificial neuronal networks and extracted a series of risk factors highlighted in previous studies.
The risk factors included the extent of social support for the mother, prior psychiatric problems in the family, emotional changes during birth, neuroticism and polymorphisms in the serotonin transport gene.
They also discovered being older and working during pregnancy both decreased the risk.
News from : UPI