Internet-delivered psychological interventions for reducing depressive, anxiety symptoms and fear of childbirth in pregnant women: A meta-analysis and meta-regression

Abstract

Objective: The current review aims to (1) investigate the effectiveness of Internet-based psychological intervention in reducing depressive, anxiety, and stress symptoms and fear of childbirth among pregnant women at post-intervention and follow-up; (2) compare the effects of the intervention using different psychological principles; and (3) explore potential covariates on the intervention effect.

Methods: A literature search of seven databases was carried out to identify published and unpublished randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in English without any time limitation up to February 2021. Meta-analysis and meta-regression were conducted using Comprehensive Meta-analysis software. This review protocol was registered on PROSPERO (CRD42021235565).

Results: Sixteen RCTs involving 3894 pregnant women were included from more than 23 countries. Internet-delivered psychological interventions were found to significantly (p < 0.05) reduce depressive (g = -0.16 to -0.32) and anxiety (g = -0.22 to -0.33) symptoms with small effect sizes at post-intervention and follow-up during 6 to 8 weeks postpartum compared with those in the comparator group. However, there was insufficient evidence for fear of childbirth and stress symptoms. Our subgroup analyses found that psychological interventions adopting component of cognitive behavioral therapy (g = -0.29) or mindfulness therapy (g = -0.62) showed beneficial effects to improve depressive symptoms among pregnant women. Univariate random-effect regression analyses showed that the attrition rate was a significant covariate (Z = -2.33, p = 0.02) on depressive symptoms. The certainty of main outcomes was graded from low to very low in accordance with the GRADE criteria.

Conclusions: Our reviews suggested that Internet-delivered psychological intervention may complement usual antenatal care in the improvement of depressive and anxiety symptoms. Future trials involving a large-scale sample are needed to improve the methodological quality.