The short- and long-term effectiveness of mother-infant psychotherapy on postpartum depression: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Abstract

BACKGROUND\nIt has been suggested that mother-infant psychotherapy may offer an alternative approach to treating postpartum depression, but little is known about its effectiveness. This review presents a summarized effectiveness of mother-infant psychotherapy on postpartum depression.\n\n\nMETHODS\nMultiple electronic databases were searched including Pubmed, Cochrane Library, EMBase, MEDLINE, et\xa0al. Hand searching of references was also performed. Randomized controlled trials reporting on mother-infant psychotherapy targeting postpartum depression were included if they used a validated measure of prescribing appropriateness. Evidence quality was assessed using the Cochrane risk of bias tool.\n\n\nRESULTS\nA total of 13 randomized controlled trials met inclusion criteria and were included in the final analysis. In the short-term effect analysis, mother-infant psychotherapy reduced standardized mean depressive scores (-0.25, 95% CI -0.40, -0.09) and risk ratio (0.71, 95% CI 0.55, 0.91). In the long-term effect analysis, mother-infant psychotherapy did not improve maternal mood, mother-infant interaction and infant attachment.\n\n\nLIMITATIONS\nClinical heterogeneity was observed among included studies in mother-infant psychotherapy intervention, suggesting the existence of potential moderators such as intensity, frequency, trimester of pregnancy or type of mother-infant psychotherapy.\n\n\nCONCLUSION\nMother-infant psychotherapy appears to be effective for the treatment of maternal depression in the short-term. Future studies with better design/execution and larger sample size are needed to confirm the effect of mother-infant psychotherapy on short-term and to explore its effect on long-term depression.