2.4. State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) The STAI is a 40-item questionnaire measuring state (20 items) and trait (20 items) anxiety. The enough STAI assesses how respondents feel right now (state) and how respondents generally feel (trait) on a 4-point Likert Scale, indicating experience of a significant amount of anxiety symptom. The total score for trait and state anxiety ranges from 20 to 80. The STAI has good internal consistency and test-retest reliability [13, 14]. 2.5. Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) The MSPSS is a self-report measure of perceived social support composed of 12 items, with four items comprising each of three sources of social support (family, friends and significant others) [15]. The MSPSS was translated to Turkish, and its validity and reliability was provided by Eker and Arkar [16].

3. Statistical Analyses Statistical analyses were done by SPSS for Windows, version 11.5 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, Illinois, USA). Data were presented as means standard deviations and percents. Student’s t-test, Mann-Whitney U-test, Chi-square and Fisher’s exact test were used to identify differences between two groups. Nonparametric tests were used when data were not normally distributed. Spearmans rho correlations were computed to evaluate the associations of EPDS total scores with STAI, MNPSS scales that are used in this study. The level of significance was taken as P < .05. 4. Results There were no significant differences in maternal age, working status, education level, parity, between the NICU and control groups.

We did logistic regression as a multivariate analysis to find out confounding factors for EPDS score of mothers whose babies were admitted to NICU trough maternal age, working status, education level, parity, duration of hospital stay, birth weight, gestational age, sex of babies and maternal health problems during pregnancies except for socioeconomic status of mothers. One of limitations of this study was that we did not take into account the socioeconomic status of mothers. There were significantly less babies who were exclusively breastfed at 4 months of age in the NICU group (Table 2). The mean birth weights of the study and control group infants were 3390 �� 510 and 2570 �� 990 (P < .0001), respectively, and all the control group infants were full term.

Of the NICU infants, 49% (n: 43) was preterm and their mean birth weight was 1958 �� 696 g, their mean gestational age was 32.6 �� 2.7 week, 51% (n: 45) was born at term and their mean birth weight was 3142 �� 578 g, their mean gestational age was 38.7 �� 1.2 week. The difference between the mean birth weight Cilengitide of the study and control infants is due to the presence of premature babies. Table 2 Demographic characteristics of the NICU and control groups.