Evaluation of Group Therapy Intervention for Anxiety and Depression in the Postnatal Period

Effective interventions for the prevention and treatment of postnatal depression and anxiety are important for family functioning and infant development. Group psychotherapy is one such intervention used in the postnatal period. This evaluation tests the efficacy of an eight-week group psychotherapy on participants' symptoms of postnatal depression and anxiety. The study also reports on the addition of a sequential attachment-based parenting program on participants' symptoms of depression and anxiety.

The study setting was a child and family health service in New South Wales, Australia. 141 women participating in a group psychotherapy program consented to participate in the study. A pre-test post-test design with four week follow up was used. Depression was measured by the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) and anxiety with the anxiety subscale (EPDS-3a). Repeated measures analysis of variance and multiple factorial mixed analysis of variance were conducted.

The mean EPDS score reduced significantly from 14.11 pre-intervention to 9.99 (p < .001). The mean EPDS-3a score reduced significantly from 5.68 pre-intervention to 4.37 (p < .001). These improvements were still present four weeks after completion of the program at a 'group reunion' session. The addition of a sequential attachment-based parenting program was not shown to be effective in further reducing symptoms of depression or anxiety (p =.183).

These findings support the efficacy of group psychotherapy interventions for reducing both depression and anxiety symptoms in the postnatal period. This intervention demonstrated lower depression symptoms in the post test compared to the pre-test periods for women with and without previous history of mental illness and those with varied baseline depression symptoms.