Paternal post-partum depression: How has it been assessed? A literature review

Abstract

The assessment of paternal postpartum depression (PPD) is not part of the standard evaluations despite its relevance. The following study aimed to identify and describe how PPD and/or depressive symptoms in men have been assessed during the first year of fatherhood, specifically to identify the main methodological and diagnostically characteristics of the studies with a specific respect to the reported frequency of paternal and maternal depression in the first year after the birth of a child. Peer-reviewed studies published between January 2005 and January 2016, documenting depression or depressive symptoms in men within the first trimester to one-year postpartum were retrieved from different databases. 52 meet the inclusion criteria Most of them were performed in Europe, were longitudinal, and used self-applied questionnaires. Paternal depressive symptoms showed frequencies between 1.8 and 47 per cent and the presence of maternal depression showed a range that fluctuated between 2.3 and 58.05 per cent of prevalence.