Mindfulness and Maternal Mental Health

Lakehead University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Mindfulness

Treatments: Behavioral: Mindfulness

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03026959

083 16-17

Details and patient eligibility

About

There is preliminary empirical support for the use of mindfulness interventions during the perinatal period; suggesting that mindfulness training may be an effective treatment approach for reducing depression and anxiety symptoms during pregnancy and reducing anxiety, stress, and psychological distress during the postpartum period. To extend on these findings, the purpose of this research is to evaluate the effectiveness of a brief mindfulness-based program in protecting maternal mental health and well-being using a randomized controlled trial.

Full description

Based on the results reported in the existing literature that show that formal mindfulness-based practice is effective for improving mental health status and preventing depressive symptom relapse, this research aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a brief mindfulness-based program, offered during pregnancy, in reducing mothers' psychological symptoms during pregnancy and the postpartum period. A brief program has the advantage being more economical to facilitate compared to full-length programs and also requires a shorter commitment from pregnant women, who are also attempting to manage multiple other new and existing demands (e.g., obstetrics appointments, work).

As emerging research suggests that women are particularly vulnerable to increased depressive, anxious, obsessive, compulsive, and hypomanic symptoms during the perinatal period these are the main psychological symptoms that will be assessed. As well, perceived stress and psychological resiliency will also be assessed for in order to examine changes in these domains in relation to mindfulness engagement. Furthermore, as a reduction in maternal psychological symptoms has been reported to have implications for mother-infant bond, the mother's interpersonal functioning, and maternal quality of life, the investigators will also assess to see if there are corresponding changes in these domains related to mindfulness engagement.

Enrollment: 38 patients

Sex: Female

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• pregnant, age 18 years and older, able and willing to attend the study site for the four group sessions.

Exclusion criteria

• presence of a current severe mental health condition or mental heath difficulties that would be better addressed through another form of therapy, active major medical illness including significant obstetric complications, inability to give informed consent, inability to speak or understand English, at high risk for delivery before reaching full term (38 weeks gestation), or previous completion of a structured mindfulness-based program.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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38 participants in 2 patient groups

Mindfulness Group

Experimental group

Description:

Participants assigned to the mindfulness group will attend four weekly sessions that are each 1.5 hours in length. The sessions will follow the structure described by Short, Mazmanian, Ozen, \& Bédard (2015). The structure is designed to first enhance learners' foundation skills in mindfulness and progresses into teaching learners more advanced mindfulness skills.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Mindfulness

Social (control) Group

No Intervention group

Description:

Participants assigned to the social group will also attend four weekly sessions that are each 1.5 hours in length. Each session will have participants focus on a creative tasks while permitting task related discussion. In this way the format is designed to parallel the mindfulness group, where participants engage in a new activity each week and have an opportunity to discuss the activities with the group without engaging in any formal intervention.