A Study to Assess the Prevalence of Postnatal Depression among the Postnatal Mothers at Walaja Government Head Quarters Hospital, Vellore District Tamilnadu

Postnatal depression is the type of depression, it develops within four to six weeks after child birth characterized by sadness, episodes of crying, irritability, anxiety & irregular sleeping patterns. It usually affects the mothers around 2weeks after child birth and may also last up to several months or even a year postnatal depression is the most common complication of child bearing women affecting approximately 10-15% of women. Objectives: To assess the prevelance of postnatal depression among, postnatal mothers, to Associate between the prevelance of postnatal depression with the selected demographic variables of postnatal mothers. Methodology: The research methodology indicates the general pattern to gather valid and reliable data for the problem under investigation. The present study was aimed to assess the level of postnatal depression among the postnatal mothers through assessment of mothers by Eden Burg scale it includes the research design, setting of the study, population, sample and sample size, sampling techniques, development of the tool, method of data collection and plan for data analyze. Result and Conclusion: Based on objectives data were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentage & inferential statistics such as chi-square. The study finding showed that the majority postnatal mothers were having possible depression (53.33%) and (46%) have no depression, There was no association found between prevelance of postpartum depression and demographic variables such as age, place of living, type of family, socio-economic status, occupation, family income, obstectrical score, type of delivery and newspaper reading and there is association found between magazines, reading and prevelance of postpartum depression at the level of Pless than0.05.