To examine the associations between dietary diversity and the prevalence of anxiety symptoms, depressive symptoms, and co-morbid anxiety and depressive symptoms (CADs) among Chinese pregnant women. Dietary diversity score (DDS) was developed according on the Chinese dietary guidelines and assessed by the consumption of nine food groups. The total score ranged from 0 to 9 and could divide into three levels: insufficient (score of 1–5), moderate (score of 6–7), and adequate (score of 8–9). Anxiety and depressive symptoms were assessed using the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale and the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, respectively. Multiple logistic regression was applied to investigate the association of DDS with anxiety symptoms, depressive symptoms, and CADs. This study included 11,684 participants in the final analysis. The prevalence of reported antenatal anxiety symptoms, depressive symptoms, and CADs were 2.8%, 9.9%, and 4.3%, respectively. After multivariable adjustment, the adequate DDS group showed lower odds of pure anxiety than the insufficient DDS group (OR = 0.43, 95%CI:0.29, 0.65). Both the moderate and adequate DDS groups had lower odds of pure depression (OR = 0.73, 95%CI:0.62, 0.86 and OR = 0.66, 95%CI:0.54, 0.82, respectively) and CADs (OR = 0.62, 95%CI:0.50,0.77 and OR = 0.42, 95%CI:0.30, 0.59, respectively) compared to the insufficient DDS group. This study provided observational evidence that higher dietary diversity was associated with a lower prevalence of anxiety symptoms, depressive symptoms, and CADs among pregnant women in China. This finding highlights the potential of dietary diversity as a modifiable factor for promoting perinatal mental health.
Dong et al. (Thu,) studied this question.
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