Effectiveness of a psycho-educational intervention for expecting parents to prevent postpartum parenting stress, depress
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(2020) 20:658
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Open Access
Effectiveness of a psycho-educational intervention for expecting parents to prevent postpartum parenting stress, depression and anxiety: a randomized controlled trial Marjolein Missler1,2* , Annemieke van Straten1, Jaap Denissen2, Tara Donker1,3 and Roseriet Beijers4,5
Abstract Background: The first months postpartum can be challenging for parents, leading to elevated symptoms of parenting stress, depression and anxiety. In turn, distressed parents are at higher risk for providing suboptimal quality of caregiving. As psychoeducational interventions can be effective in reducing psychological distress, the goal of this randomized controlled trial was to examine the effectiveness of low-intensity universal psychoeducational program to prevent postpartum parenting stress, and to enhance parental well-being and caregiving quality. Method: Between 26 and 34 weeks of pregnancy, 138 pregnant women and 96 partners were randomized to the intervention or a waitlist control group. The intervention consisted of a booklet, a video, a home visit, and a telephone call. Information was provided on (1) sensitive responsiveness, adapting to the parental role, and attending to own needs; (2) crying patterns; (3) feeding (arrangements); and (4) sleeping (arrangements). The primary outcome was parenting stress postpartum. Secondary outcomes were additional measures of distress (depression and anxiety), parental well-being, and caregiving quality. Results: Both groups showed a rise in distress after birth. No between-group differences were observed on parenting stress, nor on the secondary outcomes. The intervention was rated as useful and of added value by the parents. Conclusion: This study offered no evidence that our universal prevention program was effective in decreasing parental distress or in increasing caregiving quality. However, parents found aspects of the intervention useful. More research is needed, including a longer period of follow-up as well as observational measures of parents’ responsiveness. Trial registration: This trial has been registered on 15 September 2016 in the Netherlands National Trial Register, ID: NTR6065, https://www.trialregister.nl/trial/5782. Keywords: Psycho-education, Universal prevention program, Randomized controlled trial, Parenting stress, Pregnancy * Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Department of Clinical, Neuro and Developmental Psychology, Section of Clinical Psychology & Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands 2 Department of Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 1, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source
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