Household food insecurity, low maternal social support and maternal common mental disorders in East Mamprusi Municipality, Ghana.

Introduction: Both household food insecurity and maternal common mental disorders are public health concerns in Ghana but studies on them, and their interrelatedness are scarce. Social support is an independent determinant of mental health but can also moderate the link between risk factors and mental illness. Identifying the risk factors of mental illness may provide opportunities for intervention and help reduce disease burden and impact. This study examined the association between household food insecurity or low maternal social support and maternal common mental disorders in East Mamprusi Municipality, Ghana.

Methods: This was a community-based, cross-sectional study involving 400 mothers with children 6-23 months selected using multi-stage sampling. Summary scores for household food insecurity, maternal social support, and maternal common mental disorders were measured using Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES), Medical Outcome Study Social Support Scale (SSS), and WHO Self-Reporting Questionnaire 20 items (SRQ-20) respectively in personal interviews. Poisson regression models were fitted to determine the association of household food insecurity or low maternal social support with maternal common mental disorders, controlling for selected socio-demographic variables.

Results: The mean age of the participants was 26.7 (± 6.68) years, and the mean FIES, SSS, and SRQ-20 scores were 5.62 [95% Confidence Interval (CI): 5.29-5.96] out of 8, 43.12 (95% CI: 41.34-44.90) out of 100, and 7.91 (95% CI: 7.38-8.45) out of 19 respectively. About two-thirds of the households (71.9%), and 72.7% and 49.5% of the women had food insecurity, low social support and probable common mental disorder respectively. In the adjusted analyses, a unit increase in FIES score was associated to a 4% increment in the predicted SRQ-20 score [Incident Risk Ratio (IRR) 1.04; 95% Confidence Interval (CI): 1.02, 1.06; p = 0.001], and the predicted SRQ-20 score of the women belonging to low social support category was 38% higher compared to that of women of high social support category (IRR 1.38; 95% CI: 1.14, 1.66; p = 0.001).

Conclusion: The prevalence of household food insecurity and common mental disorders among mothers are high, and both household food insecurity and low social support are significantly related to common mental disorders in women. Interventions to reduce both household food insecurity, and common mental disorders in women are warranted, and should include social support for women.