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Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research

Date Submitted: Aug 10, 2022
Open Peer Review Period: Aug 9, 2022 - Oct 4, 2022
Date Accepted: Feb 21, 2023
(closed for review but you can still tweet)

The final, peer-reviewed published version of this preprint can be found here:

Association Between Social Networking Site Use Intensity and Depression Among Chinese Pregnant Women: Cross-sectional Study

Zhang A, Wang R, Cong S, Sha L, Sun X, Zhu R, Feng J, Wang J, Tang X, Zhao D, Zhu Q, Fan X, Ren Z

Association Between Social Networking Site Use Intensity and Depression Among Chinese Pregnant Women: Cross-sectional Study

J Med Internet Res 2023;25:e41793

DOI: 10.2196/41793

PMID: 36920458

PMCID: 10132020

Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.

Association Between Social Networking Sites Use Intensity and Depression Among Chinese Pregnant Women: Cross-Sectional Study

  • Aixia Zhang; 
  • Rui Wang; 
  • Shengnan Cong; 
  • Lijuan Sha; 
  • Xiaoqing Sun; 
  • Rong Zhu; 
  • Jingyi Feng; 
  • Jianfang Wang; 
  • Xiaomei Tang; 
  • Dan Zhao; 
  • Qing Zhu; 
  • Xuemei Fan; 
  • Ziqi Ren

ABSTRACT

Background:

Though the past years have witnessed debates about the effects of social networking sites (SNS) (including WeChat) use on mental health, the association and mechanisms between intensity of WeChat use and Antenatal Depression (AND) are unclear.

Objective:

We aimed to test the mediating roles of upward social comparison and rumination in association between intensity of WeChat use and AND.

Methods:

A cross-sectional survey was conducted in four hospitals with the self-reported measures of intensity of WeChat use, upward social comparison, rumination and AND. The SPSS was used to analyze the data.

Results:

Results from 2, 661 participants showed AND was unrelated to intensity of WeChat use (P = .54), but positively related to attitude to WeChat with statistical significance (P = .01). Attitude to WeChat couldn’t affect AND directly, but through three pathways: the independent mediating roles of upward social comparison and rumination, and the chain mediating role of both upward social comparison and rumination. The indirect effect is 0.04, -0.02 and 0.07, respectively.

Conclusions:

Our findings highlight the necessity of focusing on attitude to SNS, and the importance of upward social comparison and rumination in understanding the effect of SNS use on AND.


 Citation

Please cite as:

Zhang A, Wang R, Cong S, Sha L, Sun X, Zhu R, Feng J, Wang J, Tang X, Zhao D, Zhu Q, Fan X, Ren Z

Association Between Social Networking Site Use Intensity and Depression Among Chinese Pregnant Women: Cross-sectional Study

J Med Internet Res 2023;25:e41793

DOI: 10.2196/41793

PMID: 36920458

PMCID: 10132020

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