Percorsi di transizione alla paternità: tra benessere e disagio perinatale

[Autom. eng. transl.] Recent literature is paying increasing attention to paternity during the process of transition to parenthood. The paternal figure has undergone considerable transformations in recent decades, also following changes in socio-cultural contexts; undoubtedly there is an increase in new fathers of psychological problems, in particular anxiety and depression (Boyce et al., 2007; Condon et al., 2004; Finn and Henwood, 2009). The main objective of the present study is the detection not only of cases of overt paternal perinatal depression, but also of "at risk" situations, which could evolve into more severe forms of discomfort; for this purpose we carried out a longitudinal analysis on a sample of fathers waiting for their first child. Subjects were given the Edinbourgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) in four steps: before the birth (7/8 month of pregnancy), 40 days, 6 months, 12 months after the birth. The collected data were analyzed using the multiple trajectories model Latent Growth Mixture Model, which allowed to identify different subgroups and to isolate different trends of the subjects over time.