SynthesisGeneral hospital psychiatry
Effectiveness of interventions to prevent perinatal depression: An umbrella review of systematic reviews and meta-analysis.
Synthesis in General hospital psychiatry. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- Cost Effectiveness of Interventions for Perinatal Anxiety and/or Depression: A Systematic Review of Global Evidence.Applied health economics and health policy · 2026Pooled it
- How effective are community health workers in managing and preventing perinatal depression in sub-Saharan Africa? A systematic review of quantitative evidence.Health policy and planning · 2026Pooled it
- Interventions to reduce inequalities for pregnant women living with disadvantage in high-income countries: an umbrella review.BMC public health · 2025Pooled it
- Proactive approaches to preventing postpartum depression in non-depressive pregnant women: a comprehensive scoping review.Frontiers in global women's health · 2025Pooled it
- Lived Experiences of Migrant Fathers in the Perinatal Period: A Systematic Review and Analysis.Journal of immigrant and minority health · 2024Pooled it
- Global prevalence of perinatal depression and anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic: An umbrella review and meta-analytic synthesis.Acta obstetricia et gynecologica Scandinavica · 2024Pooled it
- Midwife-led psychoeducational life skills training reduces anxiety, stress, and depression in pregnant adolescents: a randomized trial.Scientific reports · 2025Trial
- Preventive effect of transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation on postpartum depression in cesarean women with antenatal depressive tendency: a randomized controlled trial protocol.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2026Article
- Impact of matrix-construction assumptions on quantitative overlap assessment in overviews: A meta-research study.Research synthesis methods · 2026Article
- Self-Reported Cannabis Use in Pregnancy and Maternal Psychological Health.Cannabis (Albuquerque, N.M.) · 2026Article
- Association between perinatal mood and anxiety disorder diagnosis and primary cesarean delivery among national Medicaid enrollees, 2017-2022.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Polysocial risk factors and trajectories of antenatal moderate-to-severe depressive symptoms: a retrospective cohort study in Shenzhen, China.BMC medicine · 2025Article
- Article
- Effects of psychological intervention combined with education on psychological resilience and healthy behavior of patients with pulp disease.World journal of psychiatry · 2025Article
- Management of postnatal depression: A systematic review of clinical practice guidelines.Global mental health (Cambridge, England) · 2025Review
- A personalized mHealth intervention for the universal prevention of perinatal mental disorders in routine maternal care (e-Perinatal): A protocol study for a hybrid feasibility pilot trial.Open research Europe · 2025Article
- The association between subjective socioeconomic status and depressive symptoms in women of reproductive age: the chain mediating effects of marital satisfaction and well-being.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Effects of antenatal education on maternal anxiety and depression in pregnancy and postpartum period in Italy: modest and transient symptom reductions.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Integrating Mental Health Services Into Perinatal Care: Challenges and Opportunities.Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare · 2025Article
- Use of Whooley Questions and GAD-2 Tools in Screening for Perinatal Mental Health: Current Expert Considerations.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors at 9 institutions in 7 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundTo date, dozens of systematic reviews (SRs) and meta-analyses (MAs) summarize the effectiveness of preventive interventions for perinatal depression. However, the results are inconclusive, making an urgent need to step up to higher levels of evidence synthesis.
aimsTo summarize and compare the evidence from the SR&MA examining the effectiveness of all types of interventions for preventing perinatal depression.
methodPubMed, PsycINFO, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and OpenGrey were searched from inception to December 2022. We selected SR&MA of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that compared all types of preventive interventions for perinatal depression with control groups whose outcome was the reduction of depressive symptoms and/or incidence of new cases of perinatal depression (PROSPERO: CRD42020173125).
resultsA total of 19 SRs and MAs evaluated 152 unique RCTs that included 83,408 women from 26 countries and five continents. The median effect size for any intervention was SMD = 0.29 (95% CI: 0.20 to 0.38). Exercise/physical activity-based, psychological, and any type of intervention showed median effect sizes of 0.43, 0.28 and 0.36, respectively. The degree of overlap among RCTs was slight. According to AMSTAR-2, 79% of them were rated as low or critically low-quality. The strength of evidence, according to GRADE, was poorly reported and, in most cases, was low.
conclusionsExercise/physical activity-based and psychological interventions have a small-to-medium effect on reducing perinatal depressive symptoms. There is insufficient evidence to conclude that dietary supplements and pharmacological interventions are effective in preventing perinatal depression. There is a need for high-quality SR&MA of RCTs, mainly focusing on universal preventive interventions.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.