The relationship between migration and depression, anxiety level and social support in pregnancy

Abstract

The research was conducted in Izmir, which faces the highest immigration rate and which is counted among the most developed cities in Aegean Region, in order to analyze the relationship between migration and depression, anxiety level and social support in pregnancy.

The research was conducted between December 2008 and April 2009, with 403 pregnant women who applied to the obstetrics and gynecology department of two different hospitals in Izmir, who have been pregnant for 36 weeks or more, who emigrated from another region and who agreed to participate in the research. In order to collect data for the research which is a cross-sectional and descriptive one, "Pregnant Information Form", Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Situational Anxiety Scale (SAS), Continuous Anxiety Scale (CAS) and Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSOPSS) were used which determine the characteristics of socio-demographic and other variables of pregnant women who compose the research sample.

The average age of pregnant women who composed the research sample was 27.15 ± 5.33, average age of marriage was 21.50 ±4.12. It was determined that 68.2% of pregnant women had relatives in case of need of help, and 32.5% of those who received help noted that her mother-in-law helped her. It was determined that 27.0% of pregnant women emigrated from Eastern Anatolian Region and 50.6% of them emigrated for their relatives live in Izmir. The average scores for the pregnant women who participated in the research were as follows: score for BDI was 18.54 ± 10.34, score for SAS was 42.90 ± 6.80, score for CAS was 47.84 ± 6.75 and score for MSOPSS was 50.50 ± 19.00. A significant difference was obtained between pregnant women's status of receiving social support and averages of depression scores, anxiety scores and social support scores. Furthermore, there is a positive, weak but fairly significant relationship between pregnant women's averages depression scores and anxiety scores.

It can be concluded that sufficient social support during pregnancy reduces depression and anxiety levels and that migration has a negative effect on those variables.