OBJECTIVE:

To determine the prevalence of depression, anxiety, and psychological stress with a widely used scale and to estimate the factors associated with each of them, in pregnant women attending outpatient prenatal care.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

Cross-sectional study, with relational level of analysis and prospective inclusion carried out in pregnant women residing in the rural or urban area of the Department of Bolivar, in the Colombian Caribbean, who attended outpatient prenatal control. A form including sociodemographic variables and the Depression, Anxiety and Stress scale was applied. Adjusted logistic regression models were used to observe the association between social and obstetric characteristics with each domain.

RESULTS:

We collected 509 pregnant women, after discarding 25 (4.6%) who did not have complete data. The median age was 26 years. Eighteen percent reported feeling sad and significantly to very depressed at some point during pregnancy. Thirty-four percent found it difficult to take the initiative to engage in activities. Fifteen percent felt trembling in their hands. Severe-extremely severe anxiety was almost three times more frequent than depression or psychological stress of equal severity.

CONCLUSION:

Three out of 10 patients were found to have depression, anxiety, or stress. There was significant association of several psychosocial factors.