Psychiatric services : a journal of the American Psychiatric Association
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Randomized Controlled Trial
A randomized controlled trial of culturally relevant, brief interpersonal psychotherapy for perinatal depression.
Depression during pregnancy is one of the strongest predictors of postpartum depression, which, in turn, has deleterious, lasting effects on infant and child well-being and on the mother's and father's mental health. The primary question guiding this randomized controlled trial was, Does culturally relevant, enhanced brief interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT-B) confer greater advantages to low-income, pregnant women than those that accrue from enhanced usual care in treating depression in this population? Enhanced IPT-B is a multicomponent model of care designed to treat antenatal depression and consists of an engagement session, followed by eight acute IPT-B sessions before the birth and maintenance IPT up to six months postpartum. IPT-B was specifically enhanced to make it culturally relevant to socioeconomically disadvantaged women. ⋯ Findings suggest that enhanced IPT-B ameliorates depression during pregnancy and prevents depressive relapse and improves social functioning up to six months postpartum.