Group art therapy for the management of fear of childbirth

Psychological, educational, and alternative interventions for reducing fear of childbirth in pregnant women: A systematic review

“…This seems logical as social support can be a protective factor against anxiety (Finfgeld‐Connett, 2005), thus it would be appropriate to increase the role of support. As it has been observed by other authors (Badaoui et al, 2019; Bohren et al, 2017; Lavender et al, 2013), this support can improve the mother's experience of birth, so as a complement of midwives' care or other therapies it could strengthen their effectiveness (as it was suggested regarding the study of Sezen and Ünsalver, 2019). Likewise, O'Connell et al (in press) found that, while women were more satisfied with group art‐therapy (i.e., it was more effective qualitatively), internet‐delivered CBT made them feel isolated.…”

“…In addition, it should be noted that relaxation techniques were used in many studies as part of the intervention (Akbarian et al, 2018; Downe et al, 2015; Madhavanprabhakaran et al, 2017; Mohammadi & Parandin, 2019; Sezen & Ünsalver, 2019) or even as a comparison or control group (Akbarzadeh et al, 2016; Khojasteh et al, 2016).…”

“…Sezen and Ünsalver (2019) used art‐therapy to reduce FoC and birth‐related anxiety and compared it to group psychoeducation that had the same theoretical content (control group). Both variables were significantly reduced only in the experimental group.…”

“…Nevertheless, in one study it was also found that prenatal education, fulfilled as part of TAU, achieved a lesser reduction of FoC than self‐hypnosis (Downe et al, 2015), what could be attributed to the fact that the education, differing from that used by Navaee and Abedian (2015), was not standardized. Likewise, art‐therapy emerged as a new therapy, not found in previous reviews, that showed to be even more effective than group psychoeducation in reducing FoC (Sezen & Ünsalver, 2019). In fact, a very recent qualitative review found that women were more satisfied with art‐therapy than with the other interventions (O'Connell et al, in press).…”

“…In fact, a very recent qualitative review found that women were more satisfied with art‐therapy than with the other interventions (O'Connell et al, in press). However, as Sezen and Ünsalver (2019) described, there was an additional component of group support that might have varied the effect of the intervention itself in the art‐therapy cluster. Furthermore, due to the trial's small sample size, it is not possible to reach a conclusion.…”