Mindfulness-based Intervention for Postnatal Depression

Summary

Postnatal psychopathology have adverse impact on both mothers and infants. Few postnatal women with depressive symptoms receive treatment, and pharmacological intervention has not been well accepted due to the medication side-effects. Recently, mindfulness-based interventions were found to be beneficial for symptoms in perinatal and antenatal women with depression. These non-pharmacological interventions require less resources and are more feasible for postnatal women to practice at home. To date, no randomized controlled trial has examined mindfulness-based intervention program as a treatment for women with postnatal depression. The proposed randomized controlled trial aims to examine the effects of an 8-week mindfulness-based intervention program on symptom and cognition for postnatal females with depressive symptoms.

A total of 70 postnatal women with depressive symptoms will be recruited from the psychiatric outpatient clinics in Hong Kong, and will be randomized into two groups: 1) an 8-week mindfulness-based intervention program (n=35); 2) a booklet-based psychoeducation control group (n=35). All participants will be assessed for depression, anxiety, stress, cognition, role functioning, quality of life, sleep quality and mindfulness ability at the baseline, 8 weeks, and 3 months after intervention. The intervention sessions will be held once weekly lasting 90 minutes for 8 weeks.

The investigators primarily hypothesize that participants in the mindfulness-based intervention group will improve depressive symptom after 8 weeks compared with the control group. Secondary, the mindfulness-based intervention will improve anxiety, stress, cognitive functions, sleep quality, quality of life and mindfulness ability.

Conditions

• Postnatal Depression

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Mindfulness-based program (MBI-p-R)

The MBI-p-R was developed in line with the model of Mindfulness-based Stress Reducation (MBSR) proposed by Kabat-Zinn. It will be conducted for 1.5 hours for each session, once a week for 8 weeks. There are four key operational components to be included in each session: engagement and introduction, mindfulness practices, daily life application, and consolidation of learning.

BEHAVIORAL

Booklet-based psychoeducation

The participants in the control group will be provided a booklet at baseline, including general information in handling every day stress by a new mother, as well as a record for their weekly activities. The contents covered a range of topics including work-stress, balanced diet, physical exercise, sleeping quality, bonding with baby and the treatment for depression. The participants will be contacted by phone call and/or whatsapp weekly for a short talk based on the record and content on the booklet. They will also be asked to record their daily life weekly for discussion.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• The University of Hong Kong

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Jingxia Lin, PhD · The University of Hong Kong

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

DOUBLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

FEMALE

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2017-11-01

Primary Completion

2019-10-31

Completion

2020-05-31

Countries

• Hong Kong

Study Locations