Effects of the Level of Support and The Development of Postpartum Depression among New Mothers in Select Health Centres in Kiambu County.

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Date

2024

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Daystar University, School of Applied Human Sciences

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to establish the impact of the level of support on the occurrence of postpartum depression (PPD) among new mothers in the selected health centers in Kiambu County, Kenya. The research goals included assessing the current prevalence of PPD, categorizing the manners by which support can be supplied, and discovering the relationship between support and PPD. This cross-sectional descriptive study adopted an integrated quantitative and qualitative data collection technique. A sample of 100 mothers who have given birth within the last year were selected using convenience sampling from select health facilities from Mary’s Helper of the Sick, Limuru Nursing Home, and Limuru Cottage Hospital. The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) was used to formulate the diagnosis of PPD, and the Postpartum Social Support Questionnaire (PSSQ) was used to measure participants’ perceived levels of support. Data collection was carried out in September, 2024. Descriptive statistics and correlation analysis was used in data analysis and supervised by the social sciences/SPSS version 26 statistical package. The findings suggest that social support alone may be insufficient to address PPD in Kiambu County. The data shows that even with high levels of informational support (M = 2.10, SD = 0.96), cognitive symptoms of PPD remained prevalent (M = 2.49, SD = 0.93). This points to the importance of psychological factors and mental health awareness. The data reveals that 60% of mothers reported thoughts of self-harm to some degree, indicating a critical need for psychological intervention beyond social support.

Description

MASTER OF ARTS In Counselling Psychology

Keywords

Postpartum depression (PPD), Support, Health facilities

Citation

Rurii, C. W. (2024). Effects of the Level of Support and The Development of Postpartum Depression among New Mothers in Select Health Centres in Kiambu County. Daystar University, School of Applied Human Sciences