[Group singing to address postnatal depression: a multicentre art social prescribing programme within the Italian...

in recent years, there has been growing interest in arts- and culture-based interventions as tools for promoting and safeguarding health. Social prescribing facilitates their integration into care pathways, connecting people with complex needs to non-clinical community resources through an approach centred on the individual and the social determinants of health. Between 2021 and 2023, the World Health Organisation Regional Office for Europe (WHO/Europe) promoted, in Denmark, Italy, and Romania, a study on the implementation of the group singing intervention 'Music and Motherhood', targeted to new mothers with symptoms of postpartum depression (PPD), providing an example of how an intervention which combines arts and health with proven effectiveness can be adapted and transferred to different sociocultural contexts. The Italian arm was developed as a pilot study coordinated by the Italian National Institute of Health (Istituto Superiore di Sanità, ISS). Building on the experience shared with WHO/Europe, in 2024, the ISS launched a second phase of implementation to finalise the Italian adaptation.

to assess the feasibility of the large-scale implementation within Family Care Centres of a group singing intervention for new mothers with symptoms of PPD, that has been proven to be effective, and to develop a replicable organisational model for the integration of art-based interventions into the Italian National Health Service (NHS).  Design: single-arm, multicentre implementation study.

the study was conducted in Family Care Centres. Participants included professionals involved in the training and implementation of the intervention and new mothers with symptoms of PPD who took part in the group singing sessions.

for the training, the number of professionals and teams trained, satisfaction levels, and the proportion of teams that had launched at least one cycle of the intervention within six months of the training were assessed. Implementation outcomes included adoption, feasibility, acceptability, and costs evaluation.

three editions of the course trained 50 professionals, forming six teams across five local health authorities. Within six months from the training, four teams had completed at least one cycle of the intervention and two subsequently started a second cycle, which is still ongoing. In total, 32 new mothers with symptoms of postpartum depression were referred to the intervention, with a completion rate of 90.6%, supporting its acceptability. The estimated additional cost for a healthcare organisation implementing a series of 10 sessions for the first time, excluding the cost of healthcare staff, was found to be 1,788 euros; the cost of the programme once fully established was 1,330 euros.

the implementation of the intervention in Family Care Centres proved to be feasible and was characterised by good uptake by the services, high acceptability among participants, and modest additional costs. The study proposes a replicable organisational model for the integration of art and health interventions into the Italian NHS.