Correlation between Allostatic Load Level and Depression among Women in Early Pregnancy

Abstract

Background Chronic stress is known to be associated with the onset of depression, allostatic load (AL) may play a significant role in the pathogenesis of depression as a comprehensive physiological index to evaluate response to the chronic stress. Objective To identify the association between AL level and depression among women in early pregnancy. Methods 630 Women in early pregnancy who underwent prenatal examination in the 901 Hospital, Joint Logistic Support Force of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, Jin'an Maternal and Child Health Care Hospital from November 2021 to June 2022 were selected as the research subjects by using convenience sampling method, and were divided into the depression group (n=162) and non-depression group (n=468) according to presence or absence of depression. The general information questionnaire, Pregnancy-specific Anxiety Questionnaire and Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale were used for questionnaire survey, AL-related data were collected by physical examination and laboratory tests. Multivariate Logistic regression model was used to analyze the association between AL level and depression among women in early pregnancy. Results A total of 630 pregnant women in early pregnancy were enrolled with the depression incidence of 25.7% (162/630) , including 427 pregnant women (67.8%) with low AL level (AL<3) and 203 (32.2%) with high AL level (AL≥3) . Multivariate Logistic regression analysis showed that high AL level was the risk factor for depression among women in early pregnancy〔OR=1.651, 95%CI (1.096, 2.489) , P<0.05〕. Conclusion There is a positive association between AL level and depression among women in early pregnancy, high AL level will increase the risk of depression.

Keywords

• pregnancy|depression|pregnancy trimester, first|allostatic load|surveys and questionnaires|root cause analysis|logistic models