While many people can pick up on signs of postnatal depression in new mothers, the same signs are often missed in fathers, a British study suggests.

There needs to be greater awareness that the mental health disorder can occur in either parent for up to a year after the birth of a child, researchers say.

Professor Viren Swami, a psychologist at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, UK, conducted a study to see if people reacted differently to possible postnatal depression (PND) in men and women.

He recruited 406 volunteers, aged 18-70, and had them read two vignettes describing almost identical situations where the subject suffered from PND — but one with a man and another with a woman.