Depression risks in mothers of children with developmental disabilities: a cross-cultural comparison of Brazil, Colombia, Malaysia and Thailand.

Background: Compared with US or European countries, there are fewer mental health services for mothers of children with developmental disabilities in Latin American and/or Southeast Asian countries.

Aims: To explore the risk of depression in mothers of children with developmental disabilities in countries with a lack of mental health professionals, we conducted cross-cultural comparisons for four countries: Brazil, Colombia, Malaysia and Thailand.

Methods: Using the CES-D, we compared the participants' depressive symptoms, by which we also estimated the probability of morbid depression.

Results: In every country, participants tended to show depressive symptoms. In the CES-D total scores and the numbers of mothers who were observed to have a high level of depressive symptoms, there were significant differences among countries (F = 4.36, p = .006; χ2 = 10.3, p = .015).

Conclusions: Considering cultural models, we could apply evidence-based intervention to depressive mothers of children, and conduct intervention and treatment for those mothers and evaluate ways of providing better mental health services to these individuals.