Effectiveness of Cognitive - Behavioral Therapy in the Treatment of Postpartum Depression and Three Dynamic Conflicts of Dependency, Anger and Motherhood in Postpartum Depressed Mothers

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 M.Sc. of Clinical Psychology, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Kurdistan, Kurdistan, Iran.

2 Assistant Professor, Department of Clinical Psychology, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Kurdistan, Kurdistan, Iran.

3 Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences, Kurdistan, Iran.

4 B.Sc. of Family Health, Health Center of Sanandaj, Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences, Kurdistan, Iran.

Abstract

Introduction: Postpartum depression has allocated the high prevalence of mental disorders among mothers, but it has not been studied highly enough in term of cognitive-behavioral interventions. The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy in postpartum depression and its effect on three dynamic conflicts of dependency, anger and motherhood in postpartum depressed mothers.
Method: This randomized clinical trial was conducted on 361 postpartum mothers in Sanandaj, Iran, 2012. Two weeks after child birth, patients were divided randomly into two groups by using Beck Depression Inventory-II, Edinburg scale, structured clinical interview and psychiatric diagnosis (32 mothers in intervention group and 32 mothers in control group). During the intervention, dysfunctional attitudes scale and cognitive distortions scale were used to investigate the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy, and for investigating mother-child relationship, projective scale was used to measure three conflicts of dependency, anger and motherhood. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, analysis of covariance with repeated measures.
Results: The scores of intervention group showed significant differences in terms of Beck Depression Inventory-II (p<0.001) and Edinburg tests (p<0.001) in post-test and follow-up step. Regarding the conflicts of dependency, anger and motherhood, only the last one was significantly decreased by the intervention (p< 0.005).
Conclusion: The postpartum depression improves by the cognitive-behavioral intervention, as shown by the current experimental design, employing two well-known scales. However, its effect is only significant for one of the three conflict measures: motherhood conflict.
 

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