Individuals with low self-esteem are vulnerable to depression. Depressed individuals process information related to themselves in a distorted way, thereby negatively affecting their self-esteem. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between depression and self-esteem in postnatal Korean women using longitudinal data and an autoregressive cross-lagged analysis. This study was conducted in postpartum women who had consistently participated in the Panel Study on Korean Children (PSKC) from Wave 1 through to Wave 8. The study results showed that depression and self-esteem in postnatal women had a significant positive correlation over time. Moreover, the longitudinal relationship between depression and self-esteem in postnatal women was affected by weight gain during pregnancy. This study overcomes the limitations of cross-sectional studies by using longitudinal data on the correlations between depression and self-esteem in postnatal women; the study findings may be used in developing weight control programs for pregnant and postnatal women.
Keywords: depression; pregnancy; self-esteem; weight.