Creative art therapy for postpartum depression： A systematic review and meta-analysis

This study aims to ascertain the effectiveness of creative art therapy (CAT) in alleviating symptoms of postpartum depression (PPD).

A systematic review of all randomized controlled trials of CAT for PPD was conducted. Eight bibliographic databases, namely, PubMed, The Cochrane Library, Embase, Web of Science, CNKI, Wanfang Database, VIP Database, and China Biomedical Literature Database were searched digitally, while Google Scholar database was searched manually for a comprehensive literature search. The search period is from the establishment of the database to May 2024. Literature screening and data extraction were conducted independently by two researchers, and the risk of bias in the included studies was evaluated. Finally, RevMan5.3 software and STATA 15.1 software were used for meta-analysis.

Twelve studies, including 1633 patients, were included in this review. The results of our meta-analysis revealed that the intervention group was significantly better than the control group in depression [SMD = -0.882, 95 % CI: -1.256 to -0.508, P ＜ 0.001][WMD = 0.680, 95 % CI: 0.407-0.953, P ＜ 0.001], anxiety [SMD = -0.712, 95 % CI: -1.405 to -0.019, P = 0.044], and personal state [WMD = -5.180, 95 % CI: -5.869 to -4.491, P ＜ 0.001][SMD = 0.388, 95 % CI: 0.132-0.643, P = 0.003], and the difference was statistically significant. Sensitivity analysis revealed that the above results were stable.

CAT (music and creative games) was found to be effective in relieving depression, anxiety, and personal state in patients with PPD. Though CAT appears to be worthy of clinical application, more high-quality and large-sample studies are required to explore various aspects in the current context.