Abstract
Purpose
Group prenatal care provides an alternative model of prenatal care that allows for collaboration with peers, education, discussion, and self-management training in addition to standard prenatal care. Previous research on group prenatal care has demonstrated a decreased risk of preterm labor and of low birth weight babies, increased pregnancy knowledge, and decreased perceived stress in certain populations. CenteringPregnancy®, an evidence-based model of group prenatal care, has been the focus of group prenatal care research, which has demonstrated such improvements in health outcomes as well as positive health behaviors. Could CenteringPregnancy® also reduce rates or severity of depression through its potential to increase support and knowledge of pregnancy for patients? This study aims to assess factors that may reduce risk of depression as well as rates of depression in women enrolled in CenteringPregnancy® compared to women in traditional, individual care.
Methods
This non-randomized study collected data from patients at their initial obstetric visit and again at their postpartum visit to compare psychosocial outcomes between those participants in CenteringPregnancy® versus individual prenatal care.
Results
The majority (64%) of primiparous women chose CenteringPregnancy® (×2 = 8.6399, df = 2, p = 0.003). A significant increase in Pregnancy Knowledge Scale (PKS) scores was observed in the CenteringPregnancy® group (p = 0.0278). Women in both groups revealed no significant difference in depression scores, as measured by the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS).
Conclusions
Our research adds support to current literature suggesting group prenatal care is equivalent to, and perhaps more beneficial (in certain psychosocial arenas) than traditional prenatal care (Lathrop in Nurs Womens Health 17:118–130, 2013).
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Minimal funding from department of psychiatry had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, writing of the manuscript, or any other part of the study.
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Emily Boothe DO, Marta Olenderek MD, M. Cristina Noyola MS NCC LPC, Julia Rushing MS, Erinn Allred BS, and Sebastian Kaplan PhD declare that they have no conflict of interest.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
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Boothe, E., Olenderek, M., Noyola, M.C. et al. Psychosocial outcomes of group prenatal care. J Public Health (Berl.) 30, 1373–1380 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-020-01441-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-020-01441-6