Andrea Yates Case Study

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One of the most infamous criminal cases encompassing postpartum psychosis is the case of Andrea Yates. Yates, a religious stay-at-home mom from Texas, admitted to drowning her five children in her bathtub in 2001 (Roche, Berryman, Fowlet, Hylton, and Fulton, 2002, p.42). While many can recall details of the crime provided by Yates’ highly publicized case, many are unfamiliar to the debatably verbally abusive marriage between Yates and her husband, Rusty. In numerous interviews Yates’ mother as well as her best friend, Debbie, describe Yates’ husband as demeaning, demanding, and verbally abusive (Roche, Berryman, Fowlet, Hylton, and Fulton, 2002, p.42). The two described how Yates’ husband believed parenting was solely Yates’ obligation and …show more content…
All respondents were asked to return after six weeks to meet with a medical provider. They were given the EPDS, a ten-item self-report instrument designed to assess symptoms associated with depression and anxiety, that utilizes a scale of 0-30 (Silverman and Loudon, 2010, p.412) While this tool cannot be used directly to diagnosis depression, it is an effective screening tool for the postpartum mood changes strongly associated with postpartum depression and psychosis (Silverman and Loudon, 2010, p.412). The EPDS has an accuracy of 82% (Silverman and Loudon, 2010, p.412). The statistical analysis of this data was conducted by SPSS for Windows where postpartum depressive and psychotic symptoms were analyzed against EPDS scores (Silverman and Loudon, 2010, p.413).
Section D: The
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By identifying what causes postpartum depression and psychosis, populations and individuals that are most susceptible to developing such mood disturbances can be targeted and assisted before developing the disorder fully. For example, as this study pointed out most of the women developing these postpartum mood changes are low-income and minority women, with this information, resources (counseling, therapy groups, etc.) can be supplied to areas where women of this demographics