The Effect of Hopelessness on Depressive Symptoms in Mothers of Infants Hospitalized at Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: The Mediating Role of Anxiety

Objective: Mothers of infants admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) are at high risk for depressive symptoms. This study investigated whether anxiety symptoms mediate the relationships between hopelessness and depressive symptoms in mothers with newborn infants admitted to the NICU. Methods: This cross- sectional descriptive study was conducted in the NICU of a university hospital in Turkey between October 2021 and March 2022. A total of 100 mothers whose infants were hospitalized in the NICU participated in the study. The data were collected using the Sociodemographic Data Form, Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) and Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS). Linear regression analysis was used to examine the effect of demographic characteristics on scale scores. In order to test whether the anxiety score has a mediating role in the relationship between hopelessness and depression, the analysis was made based on the bootstrap method and the Maximum Likelihood method. Results: Levels of the depression, anxiety and hopelessness levels of the NICU mothers were not affected by the demographic variables of the parent and the infant. Hopelessness was found to predict depressive symptoms (ss = 0.476; p <.050). In addition, according to the mediator variable analysis results, it was found that anxiety had a mediating role between the level of hopelessness and depressive symptoms (ss = 0.596; p <.050). Accordingly, hopelessness explains 52.5% of the change in depression along with anxiety. Conclusion: Our study detailed the specific process of depressive symptoms caused by hopelessness in NICU mothers.