Summary
Revista Brasileira de Ginecologia e Obstetrícia. 2024;46:e-rbgo23
To assess the rate of missed postpartum appointments at a referral center for high-risk pregnancy and compare puerperal women who did and did not attend these appointments to identify related factors.
This was a retrospective cross-sectional study with all women scheduled for postpartum consultations at a high-risk obstetrics service in 2018. The variables selected to compare women were personal, obstetric, and perinatal. The variables of interest were obtained from the hospital's electronic medical records. Statistical analyses were performed using the Chi-square, Fisher's exact, or Mann–Whitney tests. For the variable of the interbirth interval, a receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) was used to best discriminate whether or not patients attended the postpartum consultation. The significance level for the statistical tests was 5%.
A total of 1,629 women scheduled for postpartum consultations in 2018 were included. The rate of missing the postpartum consultation was 34.8%. A shorter interbirth interval (p = 0.039), previous use of psychoactive substances (p = 0.027), current or former smoking (p = 0.003), and multiparity (p < 0.001) were associated with non-attendance.
This study showed a high rate of postpartum appointment non-attendance. This is particularly relevant because it was demonstrated in a high-risk obstetric service linked to clinical severity or social vulnerability cases. This highlights the need for new approaches to puerperal women before hospital discharge and new tools to increase adherence to postpartum consultations, especially for multiparous women.
Summary
Revista Brasileira de Ginecologia e Obstetrícia. 2013;35(3):130-135
DOI 10.1590/S0100-72032013000300007
PURPOSE: It was to determine the prevalence of depressive symptoms in a sample of puerperal women from Brasília, Brazil, distinguishing cases with onset after delivery from those already present during pregnancy. METHODS: A prospective cohort study with convenience sampling of patients submitted to elective cesarean section at two private hospitals. As an instrument for assessing depressive symptoms, the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale with cutoff >13 was applied shortly before delivery and four to eight weeks after childbirth. RESULTS: Among the 107 women who completed the study, 11 (10.3%) had significant depressive symptoms during pregnancy and 12 (11.2%) during the postpartum period. Among the 12 patients with postpartum symptoms, 6 had symptoms during pregnancy, so that 5.6% of the sample had postpartum onset of depression. The higher overall frequency of depression was significantly among single women than among married women (p=0.04), a fact mainly due to a higher frequency of single women experiencing persistent depressive symptoms both before and after delivery (p=0.002). The risk of depression was not influenced by age, parity or educational level. CONCLUSION: Women with depression identified during the postpartum period comprise a heterogeneous group, in which symptoms may have started before pregnancy, during pregnancy or after childbirth. In this sample, half of the postpartum depression cases already presented symptoms during late pregnancy. Since depression can arise before and after childbirth, it may have different etiologies and, therefore, a different response to treatment, a possibility that should be considered by clinicians and researchers.