ABSTRACT

Objective: Our study aims to examine the association of body image dissatisfaction with postpartum depression in females of Pakistan. It also aims to find out if there is a relationship between postpartum depression and age, education and parity of mother.

Study design and setting: The study was carried out in two hospitals: Jinnah Medical college hospital Karachi and Medicare Hospital, Karachi. The data collection was carried from January 2019 - July 2019.

Methodology: It was a questionnaire based study which targeted females of Pakistan who were of child bearing age and were able to read and understand the questionnaires given to them, Women with a psychiatric illness were excluded. Edinburgh postnatal depression scale (EPDS) was used to assess depression in postpartum women while a body image Questionnaire was used to evaluate the extent of body image dissatisfaction (BID).

Result: 200 women, who were analyzed for postpartum depression, had a mean age of 28.14 years with 1.87 mean numbers of children. Mean EDB (Edinburgh) score came out to be 13.55. There was no significance of age, parity, education and occupation in determining prevalence of postpartum depression. Also body image did not play any role in causing depression however, relation between happiness and physical appearance did prove to be statistically significant (p-value 0.04).

Conclusion: According to our study, body image plays no role in postpartum depression and proves to be non-significant; whereas one’s physical appearance is an important factor in determining a woman’s happiness.

Keywords: Postpartum Depression, Body Image Dissatisfaction, Housewives, Working Women.