Effectiveness of self-help psychological interventions for treating and preventing postpartum depression: a meta-analysis.
Arch Womens Ment Health
; 21(5): 491-503, 2018 10.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-29616334
ABSTRACT
Previous studies have reported different effect sizes for self-help interventions designed to reduce postpartum depression symptoms; therefore, a comprehensive quantitative review of the research was required. A meta-analysis was conducted to examine the effectiveness of self-help interventions designed to treat and prevent postpartum depression, and identified nine relevant randomized controlled trials. Differences in depressive symptoms between self-help interventions and control conditions, changes in depressive symptoms following self-help interventions, and differences in postintervention recovery and improvement rates between self-help interventions and control conditions were assessed in separate analyses. In treatment trials, depression scores continued to decrease from baseline to posttreatment and follow-up assessment in treatment subgroups. Changes in treatment subgroups' depression scores from baseline to postintervention assessment were greater relative to those observed in prevention subgroups. Self-help interventions produced larger overall effects on postpartum depression, relative to those observed in control conditions, in posttreatment (Hedges' g = 0.51) and follow-up (Hedges' g = 0.32) assessments; and self-help interventions were significantly more effective, relative to control conditions, in promoting recovery from postpartum depression. Effectiveness in preventing depression did not differ significantly between self-help interventions and control conditions.The findings suggested that self-help interventions designed to treat postpartum depression reduced levels of depressive symptoms effectively and decreased the risk of postpartum depression.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Psychotherapy
/
Self Care
/
Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic
/
Depression, Postpartum
/
Depression
Type of study:
Clinical_trials
/
Diagnostic_studies
/
Prognostic_studies
/
Systematic_reviews
Limits:
Adult
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Pregnancy
Language:
En
Journal:
Arch Womens Ment Health
Journal subject:
PSICOLOGIA
/
SAUDE DA MULHER
Year:
2018
Document type:
Article