Online 1-Day CBT-Based Workshops for Preventing Postpartum Depression: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Postpartum depression affects up to 1 in 5 mothers, however just 15% receive evidence-based treatment. It is associated with negative consequences for women and their families with enormous costs to the healthcare system. Postpartum depression is an ideal candidate for prevention because it is common, the window of opportunity to intervene is clear (pregnancy), and its risk factors are well-established and easily identifiable. Furthermore, women are in frequent contact with the healthcare system during pregnancy and are more motivated to improve their health during this time than at any other time in their lives. Given the high rate of PPD and its adverse effects on mothers and their families, and the relative lack of efficient, effective psychotherapeutic interventions for preventing PPD, safe, novel, and efficient preventive interventions are needed. Since large 1-day workshops appear to successfully treat depression, given the widespread interest and investment of public health units across Canada in maternal and child health, Online 1-Day CBT-Based Workshops for Preventing PPD should be developed and tested for their ability to prevent PPD in Canadian women.

Based on longstanding clinical work with women at high risk for PPD, the development of a successful 1-Day CBT-Based Treatment Workshop for PPD and its delivery in-person and online, and an extensive review of the PPD prevention literature, the investigators developed the content for our prevention workshop as well as an accompanying script and intervention manual for participants in a previous pilot study. This pilot study also assessed feasibility by recruiting 32 women who took part in an online CBT-based workshop and provided feedback on its content, delivery and assessment procedures. The workshop, manual, and study protocol were subsequently refined and our experience recruiting participants in community settings into CBT treatment studies for PPD will be utilized in the current randomized controlled trial (N=408), which is aimed as assessing the effectiveness of these workshops at reducing the likelihood of developing PPD in women at risk.

Objectives of the proposed randomized controlled trial are as follows:

Primary: To determine if Online 1-Day CBT-Based Workshops delivered to pregnant persons with a past history of major depressive disorder (MDD) and added to TAU reduces EPDS scores at 2-months postpartum more than TAU alone and to determine if these workshops reduce the risk of developing PPD (EPDS score ≥13 at 2 months postpartum).

Secondary: To determine if 1-Day CBT-based workshops lead to differences in the common comorbidities of PPD (maternal anxiety, problems with the mother-infant relationship, infant temperament, maternal social support, and maternal perceived stress) between the experimental and control groups.