Effectiveness of peer support intervention on perinatal depression: A systematic review and meta-analysis

It has been suggested that peer support intervention may offer an alternative approach to prevent or treat perinatal depression, but little is known about its effectiveness, economics, and satisfaction in the prenatal and postpartum populations. This review summarizes available evidence on the effectiveness, economics, and satisfaction of peer support intervention on perinatal depression.

Multiple electronic databases were searched in five English databases (MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane Library, Psyc INFO, and CINAHL) and three Chinese databases (Wang Fang, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, and Chinese Biomedical Literature Database) from inception to April 2019. Hand searching of references was also performed. Randomized controlled trials reporting peer support intervention targeting on perinatal depression were included. The quality of evidence was assessed using the Cochrane risk of bias tool.

Ten randomized controlled trials met the inclusion criteria and were included in the final analysis. Peer support intervention reduced standardized mean depressive scores (-0.37, 95% CI -0.66 to -0.08) and reduced risk ratio (0.69, 95% CI 0.49-0.96) of depression.

Clinical heterogeneity was observed among the included studies in peer support intervention, suggesting the existence of potential mediators, such as intensity, frequency, or type of peer support intervention.

Peer support intervention may have the potential to effectively prevent perinatal depression or reduce the harm of perinatal depression. Future studies with better design/execution and larger sample size are needed to investigate potential mediators associated with the beneficial effects of peer support intervention on perinatal depression.