Art Therapy as Treatment for Fear of Childbirth

Helsingborgs Hospital

Status: Unknown

Conditions: Fear of Childbirth

Treatments: Other: Therapeutic conversations; Other: Art Therapy and therapeutic conversations

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT01457482

210/422

Details and patient eligibility

About

Earlier research has shown that pregnant women with a pronounced fear of childbirth have a significantly increased risk for birth complications and subsequent psychological trauma. In Sweden and also internationally, women in fear of childbirth are treated in many differing ways. Evidence for best care for these women is lacking. The Art Therapy method is a creative, psycho-therapeutic form of treatment which has been used for several decades within psychiatry. It has recently been seen that the Art Therapy method has positive effects during treatment for crisis reactions.

Recruitment has recently been initiated for a randomized controlled study of Art Therapy for the treatment of fear of childbirth.

The hypothesis for the study is as follows:

H1 = treatment with Art Therapy and therapeutic conversations will result in a decrease in fear of childbirth when compared to treatment by therapeutic conversations only.

The instrument which is to be used for measurement of childbirth fear is the Wijma Delivery Expectancy Questionnaire (W-DEQ). This is a well validated instrument which was developed in Sweden. A power calculation has shown a need for 62 x 2 participants; a total of 124 women.

Enrollment: 124 estimated patients

Sex: Female

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Pregnant women
• Pronounced fear of childbirth

Exclusion criteria

• Women with a current psychiatric diagnosis
• Women who do not understand Swedish
• Women with a current substance misuse

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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124 participants in 2 patient groups

Art therapy group

Experimental group

Description:

Treatment in this arm consists of five Art Therapy sessions and therapeutic conversations.

Treatment:

Other: Art Therapy and therapeutic conversations

Therapeutic conversation group

Active Comparator group

Description:

Treatment by therapeutic conversations only

Treatment:

Other: Therapeutic conversations