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©The Author(s) 2026. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Psychiatry. Feb 19, 2026; 16(2): 113533
Published online Feb 19, 2026. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v16.i2.113533
Published online Feb 19, 2026. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v16.i2.113533
Time series analysis of anxiety and depression during pregnancy to postpartum depression based on cross-lagged model
Yi-Ping Gao, Yu-Yan Lu, Department of Obstetrical, Suzhou Ninth People’s Hospital, Suzhou 215200, Jiangsu Province, China
Author contributions: Gao YP contributed to the conception, design, writing, review, and revision of the manuscript; Gao YP and Lu YY contributed to the analysis and interpretation of data. All authors contributed to the acquisition of data, acquired and managed patients, and final approved the manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the Ethic Committee of Suzhou Ninth People’s Hospital.
Informed consent statement: Patients were not required to give informed consent to the study because the analysis used anonymous clinical data that were obtained after each patient agreed to treatment by written consent.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Yu-Yan Lu, Department of Obstetrical, Suzhou Ninth People’s Hospital, No. 2666 Ludang Road, Taihu New Town, Wujiang District, Suzhou 215200, Jiangsu Province, China. 15250193830@163.com
Received: October 10, 2025
Revised: November 4, 2025
Accepted: December 4, 2025
Published online: February 19, 2026
Processing time: 111 Days and 22.7 Hours
Revised: November 4, 2025
Accepted: December 4, 2025
Published online: February 19, 2026
Processing time: 111 Days and 22.7 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: Hormonal fluctuations, anatomical changes, and evolving family roles during pregnancy often disrupt women’s physical and emotional balance, leading to mental health challenges. This study revealed that fluctuations in anxiety and depressive emotions at different gestational stages have time-lagged associations with postpartum depression, offering a new insight for clinical management of maternal emotional health during and after pregnancy.