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A Randomized Controlled Trial of Culturally Relevant, Brief Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Perinatal Depression

Dr. Grote is affiliated with the School of Social Work, University of Washington, Campus Box 354900, 4101 15th Ave. East, Seattle, WA 98105 (e-mail: ngrote{at}u.washington.edu). Dr. Swartz, Dr. Zuckoff, Ms. Houck, and Dr. Frank are with the Department of Psychiatry and Ms. Geibel is with the Office of Child Development, all at the University of Pittsburgh. Portions of this article were presented at the Second International Conference on Interpersonal Psychotherapy, November 12–14, 2006, Toronto, Canada, at the 19th National Institute of Mental Health Research Conference on Mental Health Services, July 23–24, 2007, Washington, D.C., and at the Society for Social Work and Research 12th Annual Conference, "Research That Matters," January 17–20, 2008, Washington, D.C.

OBJECTIVES: 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. METHODS: Fifty-three non-treatment-seeking, pregnant African-American and white patients receiving prenatal services in a large, urban obstetrics and gynecology clinic and meeting criteria for depression on the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (score >12 on a scale of 0 to 30) were randomly assigned to receive either enhanced IPT-B (N=25) or enhanced usual care (N=28), both of which were delivered in the clinic. Participants were assessed before and after treatment on depression diagnoses, depressive symptoms, and social functioning. RESULTS: Intent-to-treat analyses showed that participants in enhanced IPT-B, compared with those in enhanced usual care, displayed significant reductions in depression diagnoses and depressive symptoms before childbirth (three months postbaseline) and at six months postpartum and showed significant improvements in social functioning at six months postpartum. CONCLUSIONS: Findings suggest that enhanced IPT-B ameliorates depression during pregnancy and prevents depressive relapse and improves social functioning up to six months postpartum.

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