Determination of appropriate time of start of follow-up to ascertain depressive disorder outcomes in youths and adolescents of pregnant people with or without depressive disorders

Prevalence of major depressive disorders have been on the rise over the last few decades. Depression is an important public health problem that touch pregnant people. Depression during pregnancy has been associated with many negative outcomes, such as cognitive impairment and childhood psychopathology in the offspring. Many pregnant women take antidepressants, such as Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, which cross the placenta into the foetus or are present in milk while breastfeeding. Few studies focused on the long-term effect of SSRI. One of the main limitations is the unavailability of large databases with long enough follow-up time in order to detect these effects. In fact, it is unclear when the time of the follow-up should start. This project aims to address these limitations using large databases with long follow-ups in order to evaluate the association between depression and SSRIs use in pregnancy and children/adolescents’ depression. This project aims to fill in the gaps present in the literature due to methodological constraints through an international collaboration. The objective is to compare results between the Danish and Quebecois populations, to evaluate how the effect of the exposure varies across populations, databases, and to obtain robust conclusions.

Faculty Supervisor:

Anick Bérard

Student:

Partner:

University of Southern Denmark

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Education

University:

Université de Montréal

Program: