育児ストレスと産後抑うつ症 : ソーシャル・サポートとしての夫婦親密性のもつストレス緩和効果の検討

抄録

This study was designed to investigate the nature of relationships between childcare stress, marital intimacy as a social support indicator, and postpartum depression among 186 Japanese women, focusing on an examination of the stress-buffering effect of marital intimacy. Stepwise multiple regression analyses revealed that childcare stress contributed significantly to the prediction of postpartum depression, accounting for roughly 30% of the total variance, whereas marital intimacy did not show any significant direct effect on depression. The stress-buffering effect was found among the primiparous women although the form of the interaction was different from what was expected from the literature. Marital intimacy protected the women from increased depression only at the lower level of childcare stress. Possible explanations for this finding and directions for future research were discussed.