Maternal mental health and child allostatic load in rural Nicaragua
Date
2018-09-10
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Abstract
Approximately 25% of individuals worldwide will experience a common mental disorder (CMD) in their lifetime, and previous studies have suggested that poor maternal mental health (MMH) is associated with negative child health and development outcomes. However, these studies use individual markers to represent overall child health status. An allostatic load (AL) index may provide a better understanding of overall health status by pooling together multiple markers of intermediary risk to poor health outcomes. Here, I tested for an association between the following variables in a cross-sectional sample of maternal-child dyads from rural Nicaragua: 1) MMH and individual child health measures. 2) MMH and a child AL index. Multiple regression analyses found no significant relationships between MMH and any of the outcome measures. However, a high prevalence of probable cases of CMDs (30.9%) was documented among mothers, indicating that mental health should be prioritized by local and regional health interventions.
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Keywords
Allostatic Load, Maternal Mental Health, Global Mental Health
Citation
Hoehn, N. C. (2018). Maternal mental health and child allostatic load in rural Nicaragua (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/32962