Abstract

COUTINHO, Maria da Penha de Lima  and  SARAIVA, Evelyn Rúbia de Albuquerque. Social representations of postpartum depression elaborated by postnatal mothers. Psicol. cienc. prof. [online]. 2008, vol.28, n.2, pp. 244-259. ISSN 1414-9893.

The psychosociologic study approached the postpartum depression on the subjective experience of the mothers in the postnatal context taking into account the information vehiculated in their belonging group. The study aimed at the apprehension of the social representations of depression and of maternal experience elaborated by postnatal mothers with or without depressive symptomatology. A descriptive research with mothers, users of a public health service, was made and two groups were formed, based on the pontuation obtained by the Edinburgh scale for tracking the postpartum depression: 32 postnatal mothers with depression symptomatology and 33 participants that didn’t have this symptomatology. The free association of words was used, and an analysis by the Tri-Deux-Mot software and a social-demographic questionaire were made and treated by the SPSS. For the inductor stimulus depression, on the postnatal without symptomatology, psycho-organic, valourative and historical-factual manifestations emerged. The depressive mothers anchorated the depression in psycho-afective factors, pointing out repercussions on their relationship with the babies. The study pointed out the need to use plural methodological procedures.

Keywords : Social representation; Postpartum; Depression postnatal; Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale.

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