Objective: Comorbid mental disorders increase severity of depressive disorders and disability in reproductive age women who are already at risk of postpartum depression. Poor physical and mental health of mothers’ negatively affects children’s health, nutrition, and psychological well-being. The aim of the study was determining prevalance of depressive disorders and comorbid mental disorders in reproductive age women.
Method: The study included 589 women between 15 years old and 49 years old from the region of 32 family practitioners selected randomly with 30 cluster sample method among 113 family physicians in the provincial centre. The inclusion criterias was not being pregnant or at menopause, not childbearing within last 1 year and not having anymental disorder that might prevent answering questions.We used General Health Questionnaire-28 and Edinburgh Postpartum Depression Scale as screening tests and socio-demographic data form. The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID-I) were used to determine comorbidmental disorders. SPSS 11.0 program was used for statistical analysis.
Results: Thirty-two point eight of the women had Depressive Disorders. Rate of any mental disorder comorbid with depressive disorders was 49 %. Thirty seven point five of the women with depressive disorders had only a single diagnosis, 10.9 % of them 2 and 0.5 % had 3 diagnosis. The most frequently identified comorbid conditons were phobic disorders (36.5 %), OCD (15.1 %), panic disorder (6.2 %) and general anxiety disorder (2.1 %) and the others.
Conclusion: These findings suggest that depressive disorders and other mental diseases are high rates in women of reproductive age. There are few studies comorbid Axis I disorders with major depressive disorder in Turkey and no studies including all depressive disorders and reproductive age women. Age and hormonal effectsmake women vulnerable tomental illness. Presence of comorbid mental disorders with depressive disorders may affect in the reproductive age women who are already at risk of postpartum depression and could increase disability and could affect prognose. There are need to better identification of comorbid mental disorders with depression in this population. Treatment of comorbid mental disorders for reducing disability and determination of the treatment should also be considered.