A review assessing the current treatment strategies for postnatal psychological morbidity with a focus on post-traumatic stress disorder

Document Type

Article

Source of Publication

Midwifery

Publication Date

1-1-2013

Abstract

Objective: to conduct a systematic review of randomised controlled trials investigating the efficacy of treatments used to manage postnatal psychological morbidity. Design: a systematic review was conducted of studies in English published from 1995 to 2011. Studies were included in the review if they were randomised controlled trials and had extractable data on symptoms of psychological morbidity after an intervention designed to manage the disorders in postnatal women. Eight studies met the criteria and were included in the review. Findings: the number of participants ranged from 58 to 1745. The interventions included group and individual counselling, debriefing and expressive writing. Authors of only three studies reported fewer symptoms of PTSD after the intervention. Those that appeared to be helpful were counselling and expressive writing. However most authors did not assess pre-existing PTSD. Key conclusions and implications for practice: the review revealed that there was no standardised scale used for diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder across the studies and no single efficacious treatment. A universal instrument for diagnosis of postnatal post-traumatic stress disorder is required. The intrapartum relationship with midwives appears to be an important contributor to prevention of PTSD and this requires further investigation. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd.

ISSN

0266-6138

Publisher

Churchill Livingstone

Volume

29

Issue

4

First Page

377

Last Page

388

Disciplines

Medicine and Health Sciences

Keywords

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Postnatal and perinatal, Psychological morbidity, Treatment

Scopus ID

84892399110

Indexed in Scopus

yes

Open Access

no

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS