In Their Own Voices

Abstract

We conducted exit interviews with a random sample of 39 predominantly Central American immigrant mothers who had completed a longitudinal randomized controlled trial to prevent perinatal depression. We found that rates and levels of perinatal depression in the intervention and control groups were lower than expected and did not differ between groups at 1 year postpartum. Therefore, we conducted extensive semistructured interviews to (a) understand why these high-risk women had such low rates of major depressive episodes and depressive symptoms, and (b) determine if the mechanisms responsible for reductions in depression differed between the intervention and usual care groups. We discovered that the intervention group learned specific mood-management skills from their participation in the intervention, and that the control group experienced their participation in the study as a "low-dose" intervention. Our experience highlights the importance of conducting qualitative studies to understand quantitative outcomes of intervention studies.

The Impact of Antenatal Psychological Group Interventions on Psychological Well-Being: A Systematic Review of the Qualitative and Quantitative Evidence

“…Table 1 gives details of the participants’ demographic characteristics. Most of the participants fall into two categories: (1) women who are mostly white, married/partnered, slightly older and with a medium-high income [ 23 , 28 , 35 , 36 , 40 , 46 , 58 ] and (2) women who are mostly African-American and/or Hispanic, slightly younger and with a low income [ 43 , 44 , 45 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 ].…”

“…The studies described and illustrated aspects of the experiences of pregnant women engaging with group based psychological interventions. Data collection methods included written completion of open-ended questions [ 58 ] and interviews [ 37 , 38 , 61 ]. Qualitative data were analysed using grounded theory [ 37 , 38 ], inductive comparative analysis [ 61 ] and qualitative content analysis [ 58 ].…”

“…“At the “project”, they understood me … I found a family with the people from the project and I liked that a lot. But I couldn’t have done it differently because I felt comfortable with those women [ 61 ].” “ A lot of the meetings was about making friends, I’ve got a busy life, now if I feel I’m not good at anything we can just ring each other [ 37 ].” “ It was great being around women who were in a similar situation to me and I liked being able to talk about my own experience [ 58 ].” “ … the small and large group discussions … provided an opportunity to connect and relate to other women in the programme [ 58 ].”…”

“…“Listening to them made us feel important … that was important … because like I always say, some people may be in the same situation as me [ 61 ].” “Sharing experiences and realising that they were not alone in what they felt (especially when these were negative feelings) helped women to normalise their experiences; in this way the course acted as a normalising catalyst [ 38 ].” “Being able to talk to someone and listen to advice [ 61 ].” “I learned that this is a shared human experience, and I’m not the only one who suffers [ 58 ].”…”

“…“I have learned how to better understand my thoughts and my body. How my thoughts can trigger feelings and how these thoughts are not always factual [ 58 ].” “I became aware of my mood and I realised that what I had was not something bad … what I really had was low self-esteem [ 61 ].” “Yeah, that was fine, it was good, learning things, you know, social support, turning it down, asking for help … [ 37 ].”…”