The Egyptian Journal

Effectiveness of Psychological Intervention in Management ofPostpartum Depression Abdulrahman Abdulkhaliq Abdullah Alshehri(1) , Husam Mohsen Bin Alhasel(2) ,Hiba Salah Abdelgadir (3)(1) The faculty of Medicine, Albaha University, (2) Ibn Sina National College for Medical Studies, (3) Family Medicine, UMST UniversityCorresponding author: Abdulrahman Abdulkhaliq Abdullah Alshehri, Email: [email protected]: In order to prevent postpartum depression many primary preventive programs were done.Psychological interventions are thought to be effective in decreasing the incidence of postnatal depression.Many studies aimed to evaluate the effect of Psychotherapy in treatment of postpartum depression.Methods: An electronic search was obtained in MEDLINE and EMBASE databases with search terms such aspsychology, postpartum, depression, intervention, effectiveness. The primary search resulted in 128 studieswhich have been screened for eligibility. After exclusion of irrelevant, duplicated and review studies, 11studies were included in the review as they met the inclusion criteria.Results: Psychotherapy decrease the likelihood of PPD and decrease postpartum depressive symptoms,increased awareness, depression reduction, general improvement and psychological health and prevention ofPPD, improve depression, functioning and anxiety. Training for health visitors (HVs) intervention was foundto be cost-effective in reducing the proportion of women at risk. It was only noted that there was no outcomedifference between the CBA and the PCA groups. Health visitor (HV) training was noted to have preventiveeffect for depression.Conclusions: There is evidence to recommend that interventions carried in pregnancy can be effective inpreventing postnatal depression. Interventions are mainly effective when grounded on psychologicaltreatments and provided to women suffering from antenatal depression.