Performance of a Culturally Tailored Cognitive‐Behavioral Intervention Integrated in a Public Health Setting to Reduce Risk of Antepartum Depression: A Randomized Controlled Trial

INTRODUCTION: Cognitive-behavioral group interventions have been shown to improve depressive symptoms in adult populations. This article details the feasibility and efficacy of a 6-week, culturally tailored, cognitive-behavioral intervention offered to rural, minority, low-income women at risk for antepartum depression. METHODS: A total of 146 pregnant women were stratified by high risk for antepartum depression (Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale EPDS score of 10 or higher) or by low-moderate risk (EPDS score of 4-9) and randomized to a cognitive-behavioral intervention or treatment as usual. Differences in mean change of EPDS and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI)-II scores for low-moderate and high-risk women in the cognitive-behavioral intervention and treatment as usual for the full sample were assessed from baseline (T1), posttreatment (T2), and one-month follow-up (T3), and for African American women in the subsample. RESULTS: Both the cognitive-behavioral intervention and treatment-as-usual groups had significant reductions in the EPDS scores from T1 to T2 and T1 to T3. In women at high risk for depression (n = 62), there was no significant treatment effect from T1 to T2 or T3 for the EPDS. However, in low-moderate risk women, there was a significantly greater mean change in the BDI-II scores from significant decrease in the BDI-II scores from T1 to T2 (4.92 vs 0.59, P = .018) and T1 to T3 (5.67 vs 1.51, P = .04). Also, the cognitive-behavioral intervention significantly reduced EPDS scores for African American women at high risk (n = 43) from T1 to T2 (5.59 vs 2.18, P = .02) and from T1 to T3 (6.32 vs 3.14, P = .04). DISCUSSION: A cognitive-behavioral intervention integrated within prenatal clinics is feasible in this sample, although attrition rates were high. Compared to treatment as usual, the cognitive-behavioral intervention reduced depressive symptoms for African American women at high risk for antepartum depression and for the full sample of women at low-moderate risk for antepartum depression. These promising findings need to be replicated in a larger controlled clinical trial that incorporates methods to maintain greater participant engagement.