Differential Trajectories of Fathers’ Postpartum Depressed Mood: A Latent Class Growth Analysis Approach

Hsi-Ping Nieh, Chien-Ju Chang and Li-Tuan Chou
Additional contact information
Hsi-Ping Nieh: Department of Human Development and Family Studies, National Taiwan Normal University, 162, Heping East Road, Section 1, Taipei 106, Taiwan
Chien-Ju Chang: Department of Human Development and Family Studies, National Taiwan Normal University, 162, Heping East Road, Section 1, Taipei 106, Taiwan
Li-Tuan Chou: Department of Human Development and Family Studies, National Taiwan Normal University, 162, Heping East Road, Section 1, Taipei 106, Taiwan

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 3, 1-10

Abstract: Parental psychological well-being is essential to the wellness of the family. However, longitudinal investigations into fathers’ postpartum depressed mood are limited. This study aimed to identify the typologies of depressed mood trajectories over the first year postpartum among Taiwanese fathers and to examine the factors associated with such typologies. We retrieved data from a nationwide longitudinal study on child development and care in Taiwan. A total of 396 fathers, who completed at least one of the three interviews when their children were 3, 6, and 12 months old between 2016 and 2017, were included in this analysis. Conditional latent class growth analysis was conducted to identify the classifications of the fathers’ depressed mood trajectories in the first year postpartum and to estimate the effects of covariates on individuals’ membership of a trajectory class. Three classes of depressed mood trajectories were identified. The high increasing group consisted of 11% of the participants; the moderate increasing and the low decreasing groups consisted of 28% and 61% of the participants, respectively. Financial stress was associated with the fathers’ likelihood of being in the high increasing group compared with their likelihood of being in the low decreasing group (OR = 2.28, CI = 1.16–4.47). The result may be related to the difference in gender roles and social expectations.

Keywords: fatherhood; depressed mood; postpartum; latent class growth analysis; Kids in Taiwan (KIT) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/3/1891/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/3/1891/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:3:p:1891-:d:744321

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().