Depression and Thoughts of Death Among Disadvantaged Mothers: Risk Factors and Impact on Maternal and Child Health

The authors’ hypotheses were that modifiable societal risk factors would contribute to depression & thoughts of death & that these would affect maternal & infant well-being. A retrospective database analysis with bivariate & multivariate statistics used 3 years of data from the prospective Fragile Families & Child Wellbeing Study. 880 mothers were clinically depressed; of these, 286 reported thoughts of death. Thoughts of death were significantly associated with family violence & alcohol use; a combination of thoughts of death with family violence or maternal alcohol use markedly increased the risk of infant hospitalization. Routine screening for these issues should be implemented. (34 refs.) JA