The Effects of Motherly on Postpartum Depression

Postpartum Depression Clinical Trial

Official title:

Randomized Controlled Trial Testing the Effects of Motherly: a Standalone Smartphone Application Treatment for Women With Postpartum Depression

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Not yet recruiting

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT05055674
• Other study ID #: OR2019-62903
• Status: Not yet recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: September 2021
• Est. completion date: July 2022

Study information

• Verified date: September 2021
• Source: University of Sao Paulo
• Contact: Daniel Fatori, PhD
• Phone: +55 11 96162-6183
• Email: daniel.fatori[@]gmail.com
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

Investigators will be test the efficacy of Motherly, a smartphone application (app) to treat depression in women with postpartum Depression. The Motherly app offers psychoeducation, mood and anxiety monitoring, several well-established psychological techniques (behavioral activation, cognitive restructuring, emotion regulation, stress management techniques, mindfulness and meditation, sleep hygiene), and helps mothers organize their medical appointments and keep track of their childrens' development. The efficacy of the Motherly app will be tested in a parallel two-arm randomized controlled trial. Participants will be randomly allocated to receive the Motherly app (intervention), or COMVC (active control), a smartphone app that delivers only psychoeducational content related to general mental health.

Description:

The postpartum period is strongly associated with increased risk for depression, with estimates of approximately 19% of women affected by the disorder. Psychosocial interventions such as home visiting programs and well-established psychological therapies are efficient to treat this condition but require a significant number of qualified trained professionals. However, financial and human resources to meet these demands are scarce in developing countries such as Brazil. Therefore, interventions delivered via electronic devices such as smartphones might fill this gap. Our objective is to test the efficacy of Motherly, a smartphone application (app) to treat depression in women with postpartum Depression. The Motherly app offers psychoeducation, mood and anxiety monitoring, several well-established psychological techniques (behavioral activation, cognitive restructuring, emotion regulation, stress management techniques, mindfulness and meditation, sleep hygiene), and helps mothers organize their medical appointments and keep track of their childrens' development. The efficacy of the Motherly app will be tested in a parallel two-arm randomized controlled trial. Two-hundred and sixty-four (N=264) 18-40-years-old women with postpartum depression will be to one of two groups: (1) intervention, which will have access to the Motherly app; or (2) active control, which will be given access to COMVC, a smartphone app that delivers only psychoeducational content on general mental health (COMVC means "With You" in Brazilian Portuguese). Duration of treatment will be four weeks, during which participants in both groups will be assessed at the beginning (baseline; T0), end (post treatment, T1), and 1 month after treatment completion (follow-up, T2).

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Not yet recruiting
• Enrollment: 264
• Est. completion date: July 2022
• Est. primary completion date: March 2022
• Accepts healthy volunteers: No
• Gender: Female
• Age group: 18 Years to 40 Years

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• Women who had given birth to a live baby in the past 12 months;

• Age between 18-40 years;

• Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) total score = 10;

• Depression symptoms present in the past 2 weeks;

• Being literate;

• Owing an Android or iPhone smartphone for personal use.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Intellectual, visual, or auditory deficiency;

• Chronic diseases that prevent using smartphones or understanding how to use the apps;

• Severe and/or chronic mental health diagnosis (schizophrenia or bipolar disorder).

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Depression
• Depression, Postpartum
• Depressive Disorder
• Postpartum Depression

Intervention

Behavioral:
• Motherly app
The Motherly app is organized in four different modules: 1) Library: a collection of brief texts on several topics related to health and pregnancy, 2) Health: journeys with varying degrees of interactivity designed to teach and engage participants in well-established psychological techniques (behavioral activation, cognitive restructuring, emotion regulation, stress management techniques, mindfulness and meditation, sleep hygiene techniques), 3) Pregnancy and motherhood: a module to help mothers keep track of their health care visits, medical exams, and their childrens' development, and 4) Profile: a module allowing participants to keep track of activities and goals completed in the Health module journeys, and to assess depression and anxiety symptoms with brief questionnaires, with results displayed graphically in a timeline and in the the form of short feedback texts.
• COMVC app
The COMVC displays over 30 brief psychoeducational videos on several topics related to general mental health, such as depression, anxiety, stress, sleep, problem solving techniques, among others. Psychoeducation is limited to video only (no interactivity). The content of these videos was developed by clinicians, researchers, and professors from the Psychiatry Department of the Medical School of the University of Sao Paulo and from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. Mental health monitoring is delivered by means of brief questionnaires assessing depression and anxiety symptoms, which can be filled at users' discretion. Users' responses are displayed graphically in a timeline and they receive short feedback texts based on assessment results.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
n/a

Sponsors (1)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
University of Sao Paulo

References & Publications (11)

Gelaye B, Rondon MB, Araya R, Williams MA. Epidemiology of maternal depression, risk factors, and child outcomes in low-income and middle-income countries. Lancet Psychiatry. 2016 Oct;3(10):973-982. doi: 10.1016/S2215-0366(16)30284-X. Epub 2016 Sep 17. Review. — View Citation

Gonçalves H, Pearson RM, Horta BL, González-Chica DA, Castilho E, Damiani M, Lima RC, Gigante DP, Barros FC, Stein A, Victora CG. Maternal depression and anxiety predicts the pattern of offspring symptoms during their transition to adulthood. Psychol Med. 2016 Jan;46(2):415-24. doi: 10.1017/S0033291715001956. Epub 2015 Oct 12. — View Citation

Grote NK, Bridge JA, Gavin AR, Melville JL, Iyengar S, Katon WJ. A meta-analysis of depression during pregnancy and the risk of preterm birth, low birth weight, and intrauterine growth restriction. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2010 Oct;67(10):1012-24. doi: 10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2010.111. — View Citation

Jacques N, Mesenburg MA, Matijasevich A, Domingues MR, Bertoldi AD, Stein A, Silveira MF. Trajectories of maternal depressive symptoms from the antenatal period to 24-months postnatal follow-up: findings from the 2015 Pelotas birth cohort. BMC Psychiatry. 2020 May 14;20(1):233. doi: 10.1186/s12888-020-02533-z. — View Citation

Kingston D, Tough S, Whitfield H. Prenatal and postpartum maternal psychological distress and infant development: a systematic review. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev. 2012 Oct;43(5):683-714. doi: 10.1007/s10578-012-0291-4. Review. — View Citation

Matijasevich A, Murray J, Cooper PJ, Anselmi L, Barros AJ, Barros FC, Santos IS. Trajectories of maternal depression and offspring psychopathology at 6 years: 2004 Pelotas cohort study. J Affect Disord. 2015 Mar 15;174:424-31. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2014.12.012. Epub 2014 Dec 13. — View Citation

Netsi E, Pearson RM, Murray L, Cooper P, Craske MG, Stein A. Association of Persistent and Severe Postnatal Depression With Child Outcomes. JAMA Psychiatry. 2018 Mar 1;75(3):247-253. doi: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2017.4363. — View Citation

Santos IS, Matijasevich A, Tavares BF, Barros AJ, Botelho IP, Lapolli C, Magalhães PV, Barbosa AP, Barros FC. Validation of the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) in a sample of mothers from the 2004 Pelotas Birth Cohort Study. Cad Saude Publica. 2007 Nov;23(11):2577-88. — View Citation

Wang L, Wu T, Anderson JL, Florence JE. Prevalence and risk factors of maternal depression during the first three years of child rearing. J Womens Health (Larchmt). 2011 May;20(5):711-8. doi: 10.1089/jwh.2010.2232. Epub 2011 Mar 22. — View Citation

Weisel KK, Fuhrmann LM, Berking M, Baumeister H, Cuijpers P, Ebert DD. Standalone smartphone apps for mental health-a systematic review and meta-analysis. NPJ Digit Med. 2019 Dec 2;2:118. doi: 10.1038/s41746-019-0188-8. eCollection 2019. Review. — View Citation

Zuccolo PF, Xavier MO, Matijasevich A, Polanczyk G, Fatori D. A smartphone-assisted brief online cognitive-behavioral intervention for pregnant women with depression: a study protocol of a randomized controlled trial. Trials. 2021 Mar 23;22(1):227. doi: 10.1186/s13063-021-05179-8. — View Citation

* Note: There are 11 references in all — Click here to view all references

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Other	Activation and avoidance behaviors	Change in mean scores between intervention and control groups in the The Behavioral Activation for Depression Scale-Short Form (BADS-SF) scale.	Posttreatment (T1) 1 month after baseline and Follow-up (T2) 2 months after baseline
Other	Reinforcement probability and environmental suppression	Change in mean scores between intervention and control groups in the Reward Probability Index (RPI) scale.	Posttreatment (T1) 1 month after baseline and Follow-up (T2) 2 months after baseline
Other	Response to treatment	Comparison between intervention and control groups according to two categories: Very much improved, Much improved, Minimally improved vs. No change, Minimally worse, Much worse, Very much worse, in the Clinical Global Impression Index (CGI) scale.	Posttreatment (T1) 1 month after baseline and Follow-up (T2) 2 months after baseline
Primary	Depression symptoms	Change in mean total scores between intervention and control groups in the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) at Posttreatment (T1)	Posttreatment (T1) 1 month after baseline
Secondary	Depression symptoms	Change in mean total scores between intervention and control groups in the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS)	Follow-up (T2) 2 months after baseline
Secondary	Anxiety symptoms	Change in mean total scores between intervention and control groups in the General Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7)	Posttreatment (T1) 1 month after baseline and Follow-up (T2) 2 months after baseline
Secondary	Sleep quality	Change in mean total scores between intervention and control groups in the Single-item Sleep Quality Scale at Posttreatment (T1) and Follow-up (T2).	Posttreatment (T1) 1 month after baseline and Follow-up (T2) 2 months after baseline
Secondary	Quality of Life: Physical Health	Change in "Physical Health Quality of Life" mean scores between intervention and control groups in the 12-item health survey (SF-12) at Posttreatment (T1) and Follow-up (T2).	Posttreatment (T1) 1 month after baseline and Follow-up (T2) 2 months after baseline
Secondary	Quality of Life: Mental Health	Change in "Mental Health Quality of Life" mean scores between intervention and control groups in the 12-item health survey (SF-12) at Posttreatment (T1) and Follow-up (T2).	Posttreatment (T1) 1 month after baseline and Follow-up (T2) 2 months after baseline
Secondary	Parenting stress	Change in "Total Stress" mean scores between intervention and control groups in the Parenting Stress Index (PSI) Short Form at Posttreatment (T1) and Follow-up (T2).	Posttreatment (T1) 1 month after baseline and Follow-up (T2) 2 months after baseline
Secondary	Parental Distress	Change in "Parental Distress" mean scores between intervention and control groups in the Parenting Stress Index (PSI) Short Form at Posttreatment (T1) and Follow-up (T2).	Posttreatment (T1) 1 month after baseline and Follow-up (T2) 2 months after baseline
Secondary	Parent-child Dysfunctional Interaction	Change in "Parent-child Dysfunctional Interaction" mean scores between intervention and control groups in the Parenting Stress Index (PSI) Short Form at Posttreatment (T1) and Follow-up (T2).	Posttreatment (T1) 1 month after baseline and Follow-up (T2) 2 months after baseline
Secondary	Difficult Child	Change in "Difficult Child" mean scores between intervention and control groups in the Parenting Stress Index (PSI) Short Form at Posttreatment (T1) and Follow-up (T2).	Posttreatment (T1) 1 month after baseline and Follow-up (T2) 2 months after baseline
Secondary	Attachment	Change in "Attachment" mean scores between intervention and control groups in the Parenting Stress Index (PSI) Short Form at Posttreatment (T1) and Follow-up (T2).	Posttreatment (T1) 1 month after baseline and Follow-up (T2) 2 months after baseline
Secondary	Parenting Competence	Change in "Competence" mean scores between intervention and control groups in the Parenting Stress Index (PSI) Short Form at Posttreatment (T1) and Follow-up (T2).	Posttreatment (T1) 1 month after baseline and Follow-up (T2) 2 months after baseline

External Links

•   Official website of the Motherly app