Interpersonal Support as a Predictor of Postpartum Depression: Mediating Role of Marital Satisfaction

Abstract

Postpartum phase is a period of rapid changes where both parents go through major shifts in their overall life. Taking in charge of a new role brings about a lion’s share of responsibilities with changes in daily routine. Because of this, Parents become vulnerable to many mental health condition. Many factors can predict the extent to which parents can be vulnerable to a serious condition, postpartum depression. There are several determinants which act as protective and risk factors for postpartum depression, most crucial of them are interpersonal support and marital satisfaction. Purposive sampling technique was used to collect data from a sample (N=208) parent in which there were (N=100) men and (N=108) women residing in Rawalpindi, with and average age range of 18-55 years. The quantitative data was collected using measure that were validated and standardized indigenously in Urdu language including Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (Dosani et al., 2022), ENRICH Marital Satisfaction Scale (Anjum et al., 2022) and Interpersonal Support Evaluation List. The results of the statistical analyses of Pearson product moment correlation performed using SPSS version 26 showed that there is a significant relationship between interpersonal support, marital satisfaction and postpartum depression among parents in their postpartum phase. Marital satisfaction and interpersonal support emerged as significant negative predictors of postpartum depression. Mediation analyses run through Process macro revealed that marital satisfaction act as a significant mediator between interpersonal support and postpartum depression to decrease the onset and prevalence of postpartum depression. Overall, the study has provided empirical evidence of significant association between interpersonal support, marital satisfaction and postpartum depression among parent