Impact of maternal psychosomatic empowerment during pregnancy on the improvement of mental health and maternal and fetal outcomes: A pilot study

Objectives: To investigate the effect of maternal psychosomatic empowerment during pregnancy on improving mental health in Mashhad, Iran.Methods: In this quasi-experimental pilot study, 90 pregnant women were assigned into two groups. The intervention group was provided training sessions and routine care, while the control group only received routine care. The General Health Questionnaire -28 (GHQ -28) and Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) were completed by mothers in both groups. The data were analyzed in SPSS software by multivariate analysis of variance for repeated measures.Results: The mean GHQ scores were reduced from 39.3 +/- 14.8 and 43.1 +/- 12.84 in the first stage to 15.7 +/- 8.66 and 22.72 +/- 11.3 in the fourth stage in the intervention and control groups, respectively. The results demon-strated a significant difference among the GHQ scores obtained at four stages (F = 244.057, P < 0.001), regardless of the group factor.Conclusions: The mothers subjected to the training sessions had a lower level of depression than their counter-parts in the control group.Practice Implications: The findings encourage healthcare providers to improve mothers' mental health by implementing psychosomatic empowerment training during pregnancy.