Neonatal Intensive Care Units are Depressing: A Case-control Study of Parents of Babies Admitted to Neonatal Intensive Care Units

Objective: To evaluate depression in parents of newborns hospitalized in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).Design: Cross-sectional case-control study.Controls were parents of babies lying-in with mothers.All parents were asked to fill out the Edinburgh Postpartum Depression Scale (EPDS) questionnaire.Setting: Tertiary care hospital in India. Materials and methods:Participants: Parents of 134 newborn babies were studied, half of whom were cases.Main outcome measures: EPDS score.Results: 49.2% NICU mothers had EPDS scores >13 as compared to 20.8% in the control group.23.8% fathers had EPDS scores >13 as compared to 5.9% among controls.To eliminate the influence of gestation as a confounding factor, we also compared parents of newborns with gestation >35 weeks who were in the NICU with controls.The mean EPDS score of mothers of term babies in NICU was 12.13 against 8.79 in controls (p-value < 0.001).Similar differences were seen in fathers of term babies admitted to NICU.We found that 42% of mothers who had a high EPDS score had husbands with a high score (Pearson's correlation coefficient r = 0.562).Conclusions: This is arguably the first study to look at EPDS score in both parents of NICU admission and compare this with controls.Depression is common among parents of newborns admitted to NICU as compared to those lying in with the mother, and the incidence of this seems higher than reported from the West using the same scoring system.To ameliorate the risks to the neonate, especially after discharge home, such parents will need special support.