Due to childhood malnutrition causes almost 50 % of child deaths, decreasing the prevalence of malnutrition could be a way to contribute to child survival strategies. The article is based on a study done in children aged between 6 months and 5 years in Mahalapye (Botswana) in order to determine if there is a relationship between primary caregivers (PCG) depression and malnutrition.
It is known that depression is one of the most prevalent mental illnesses, especially in women of childbearing age. This disorder is typified by apathy and low energy levels. It is logical to think that this illness affects on the PCG care abilities and, consequently, on children risk of having health problems. The PHQ 9, a screening tool validated in primary medical care (PMC) in some countries, was the test used to evaluate depression in PCG. Most of the sample were females, with a mean age of 34 years.
The study exposed a statistically significant association between malnutrition in these children and depression in their PCG.
Due to preventive strategies depend on the PGC, researches propose to train medical general practitioners to be able to screen PCGs of children with malnutrition and to design interventions which ultimate aim is to improve maternal (or PCG) mental health.
With all this information, some questions come to my mind.
Do the age of children has influence over the results of the study? Should the age be extended to the onset of adolescence?
Do you think maternal education level or mother´s employment affects on the risk of developing depression? What about the gender of the parent or the country where you live?
Would it be useful to introduce screening methods in Spain? Agree or not agree, what solutions do you propose?
You can check the link of the article below:
Raquel.
Well! As my point of view, I think it could be really interesting to amplify the range age until teenagers. Mainly because there are not only 5 years old childs the ones that depend on their PCG to subsist. Because almost all adolescents also depend on their parents economy. Obiously it will change the study results, increasing the levels of desnutrition.
ResponderEliminarI totally agree with you Noemí, but I guess that it would be convenient to study malnutrition in children under 6 month too. Mainly due to previous studies with children with this age didn’t have clear results; did they?
EliminarHi ^^
ResponderEliminarFirst of all, thank you Raquel for choosing that article. I guess children malnutrition is an interesting topic that concerns all of us. ^^
Regarding the article, one of the things that has really confused me was the fact that most of the studied PCG were unemployed. I think that depression is more prevalent in unemployed people, and probably if the studied sample had been bigger, the unemployment rate would have been higher among the cases. I suppose that there wasn’t any difference between both rates because of Botswana’s high unemployment rate.
I strongly believe that unemployment should be taken into account in future studies with population with a lower rate of it as well as the PCG’s educational level has been.
PCG’s educational level has demonstrated to have an impact in children malnutrition because more educated PCGs have less probabilities to suffer depression (which could finish in severe malnutrition in the children they take care of). Being aware of this, probably developed countries which have a more educated population have less children malnutrition. Nevertheless, I consider that even developed countries’ population is more educated, they have a lower rate of children malnutrition as a result of their wealth.
Cheers!
Hello Raquel!
ResponderEliminarAnswering the question about the relationship between maternal educational attainment and depression, I think maternal higher education attainment lowers the risk of developing depression. If these mothers are more educated, they can have access to better paid jobs or have higher chance of employment. This way, they are financially and economically more stable, which also gives more emotional stability and happiness, as they can have the means to fulfill their personal achievements.
Hello Tiago! I don´t really agree with you about this concrete topic. The level of education or employment influence indeed, but it doesn´t mean that to affect in a positive or negative way. I believe that a positive or a negative vision of your life and your responsabilities, -which define depression or a normal behaviur-, is more related with emotional inteligence than the economic, employent or education level of PCG.
EliminarIt can happen that a person who have a high level of education, a good job and means, don´t know how to manage it emotionally and it makes him fall into depression.
Hi María! Thank you for your reply to my comment.
EliminarWhile emotional intelligence is essential to manage our own happiness and other emotions, in my opinion there is some level of wealth required to be happy. This way, employment is necesary in order to have a source of income. If there is an economical stability, these mothers have the means to be more healthy, since they can go to the doctor, get vaccinated, etc. It goes without saying that being absent of disease increases happiness. Money may not buy happiness, but it surely buys medication, school fees and food for your children.
Hello,
ResponderEliminarThis is such an interesting article and topic.
This is my opinion to the questions you talk about:
According to the age of the children in the study, I do belive that has an influence over the results, basically because at that age children are completely dependent on their parents, while a teenager maybe has more capacity of choice (which doesn't mean they have the resources to choose). Perhaps, in order to study the relation between parent's depression and malnutrition it would be more useful to focus on little kids.
I think it is undeniable to relate the employment with depression. I don't think it depends on the gender, but in the life they live (or their genetical condition to suffer it). Studies relect that people who stays at home without being an active part of the society, it's more likely to suffer from depresion.
As Spain is a country whith a big unemployment rate it could be useful to start this studies here, to prevent malnutricion in our youngest citizens.
Hello, doctors!!,
ResponderEliminarI find this article quite interesting, especially because it's a issue very useful if you know how to face this problem. What's more, something like that isn't learnt in our medicine's degree, despite it seems obvious and important. It woud be profitable introduce some screening methods in Spain, or some measures to improve this situation. However, I accept that it would be hard to research this, considering that depression is sometimes difficult to distinguish of other diseseases.
Good night!
Hi everyone!
ResponderEliminarI agree with what Andrea says about the age of children. Besides, little kids are weaker and more vulnerable than teenagers. Maybe, this is why a lot of children's deaths are in those who are less than 5 years old.
Depression doesn't differenciate between the various levels of education mothers might have and, despite that they have more resources, I think that it couldn't be enough to decrease the risk of malnutrition in their kids.
Hello Raquel,
ResponderEliminarThis is a very interesting topic indeed!
From the moment we are born, we rely on our parents or on our caregivers to tend to our every need and most of all in order to survive, as our brains are so underdeveloped. Unlike other species, human babies are not self-sufficient and are quite helpless. For the first two months of life, babies cannot lift their heads without help, they cannot walk until at around 1 year old and the most basic survival skills such as walking and feeding themselves takes at least another year or even more to learn. Children are usually utterly dependent on their parents or on their caregivers for almost a decade so that brings me to one of your questions: “Should the age be extended to the onset of adolescence?” In my opinion, if we are to include some of the most important milestones in the child’s development, it is crucial that we follow the child’s growth up until puberty to say the least. Even if at ten you can walk and feed yourself, you have to grow psychologically as well and you are bound to learn from the examples your parents provide you.
As babies are so fragile and helpless, they need help from their caregivers, who are the ones that teach them how to live in a world where everything is new. Caregivers are not only the ones that feed, clothe and bathe you, but they are also the ones that take you to the doctor, that teach you how to wash your hands and brush your teeth, how to tie your shoes and how to read and write. If we think about this, another question springs to mind: “What if your caregiver is sick? What if your caregiver has depression? What happens to your upbringing?”. Let us pretend you are to be cared for by a person who is mentally ill: most likely, you will not achieve your milestones and you will have developmental issues, both mental and physical, because of the way your caregiver is feeling. If your caregiver is unemployed, then the depression may get worse and you may turn out to have more problems in regards to your education in general. As depression is more frequent in women, I believe that if the caregiver is a woman than more help should be provided in order to guide them throughout the whole process.
In my opinion, we should try to implement preventive strategies so that we can reduce child malnutrition. We need to educate women from the begging, from the minute they think about either having a baby or adopt or becoming a caregiver. We should think about not only screening, but also community-level intervention in order to give caregivers more tools to fight this problem and to make women feel more empowered and less scared to find help and admit they might be fighting depression.
Hello everyone! Althought I think that this is an interesting article from the view that it is a topic that must be studied, treated and solved, as much as possible. On the other hand, I also think that children´s desnutrition and their lack of care is a logical consequence of PCG´s depression. Once we realize and understand this fact, we must take sides. About your questions, I believe that the age of children can probably change the results of the study, because each age, has his own problems and characteristics, so each age affects PCGs in a different way. In addition, it would be positive to extend the age of the study to adolescence, because this age group could show different and interesting results which may be useful to know. Education, employment, gender and the country where PCG live, surely affects to the probability of suffering from depression, because each group have their own worries and responsabilities as well. Introducing screening methods in Spain and the rest of the countries would be useful for sure, because when you prevent and detect the problem, you win. Perhaps a solution would be to test children whenever they visit the family doctor by studying risk´s factors and signs.
ResponderEliminarGood afternoon!
ResponderEliminarFirst of all thanks for your comments, I hope you found this topic interesting. It was very enjoyable to read your opinions. Just for conclude this post, I want to summarize the main ideas of the debate.
Most of us agree with the idea of extending the age of study to the onset of adolescence, due to children aged between 6 months to 5 years are not the only ones who depend on their PCG. Evidently, the age has influence over the results. Each age has his own problems and different characteristics.
We also agree it would be useful to implement preventive strategies in our country in order to reduce child malnutrition. Some propose screening, others propose community-level interventions and supportive therapy with the purpose of making women feel less afraid to admit they might be combating depression.
The most controversial point is related to the effect of education level or mother´s employment on the risk of developing depression and, consequently, the risk of child malnutrition. Some members think these aspects are correlated with economic stability due to they get better paid jobs, which also provides more emotional stability. However, a small number think the vision of life and duties is more related with emotional intelligence than employment or education level.
One thing is clear. Money buys medication, clothes, food and all requirements of the children.
Till the next post!
Raquel.