Perinatal Anxiety and Depression in Minority Women.
Susan Gennaro, Caitlin OʼConnor, Elizabeth Anne McKay and 4 others
PMID 31977497WHAT IT FOUND
Perinatal depression screening is recommended but often incomplete.
A positive screen is not a diagnosis. Use a tool such as the EPDS, assess self-harm risk, and have urgent and outpatient referral pathways ready.
Key findings
01Screening is recommended but not universal; in New Jersey, 67% of pregnant women reported being screened, with 90% screened at hospital delivery, and only 8.6% of women identified with antenatal depression received adequate treatment.
02The review reports that CBT and interpersonal psychotherapy have been found to reduce depression in pregnant women, with an almost 40% decrease across over 20 studies.
03A positive perinatal depression screen is not a diagnosis and requires clinical evaluation; the EPDS can identify women at immediate risk of self-harm for urgent referral.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
This is a narrative review, not a systematic review, so it does not report how studies were searched, selected, or appraised. It does not present original participants or outcomes, so it cannot establish the size of any treatment effect. It recommends screening and treatment pathways, but the paper itself does not test whether these steps improve maternal or newborn outcomes. It notes that much of the mindfulness evidence comes from mostly Caucasian samples. It cites provider barriers and low treatment rates, but does not provide a trial result showing how to overcome them.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this review as evidence that screening or therapy was tested in this paper. It summarizes prior literature and recommends pathways, and a positive screen still needs clinical evaluation.