Expectationsbased intervention as a tool to reduce severity of postpartum depression and improve coparenting -- Dissertation

By: Inna Zaslavsky, Khazan

The goals of this study were twofold: The first goal was to design, implement and evaluate a prepartum intervention aimed at reducing the severity of symptoms of maternal depression in the postpartum period. This intervention focused on providing mothers-to-be with realistic expectations regarding infant behavior and childcare related stressors. The second goal was to examine the relationship between severity of maternal postpartum depression and coparenting dynamics in the family. The study involved fifty eight couples. Twenty six of them took part in the intervention and composed the experimental group, while 32 did not take part in the intervention and composed the control group. The results of this study showed that the intervention was successful in reducing the severity of symptoms of postpartum depression: Mothers in the experimental group reported lower levels of depressive symptomatology than did mothers in the control group. Moreover, mothers in the experimental group exhibited more realistic expectations regarding negative infant behaviors, but less realistic expectations regarding positive infant behavior, compared to their own pre-intervention baseline and to mothers in the control group. The results also showed that violated expectations regarding infant behavior contributed to greater severity of postpartum depressive symptomatology in mothers in the control group, but not the experimental group. Furthermore, findings showed a possible protective effect of the intervention on the coparenting relationship: while for control group families greater levels of maternal depression were related to lower quality of the coparenting relationship, for the experimental group, greater severity of depressive symptomatology was actually related to higher quality of the coparenting relationship. Moreover, the extent to which fathers believed in the importance of being involved with their children was also associated with the quality of coparenting in both groups.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0542343606
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: ProQuest / UMI