Initial promise of child-parent psychotherapy in reducing stress and postpartum depression among mothers experiencing homelessness: a feasibility and pilot study

Mothers experiencing homelessness undergo significant stressors in addition to parenting stress, yet the rate and treatment of postpartum depression (PPD) within this population has yet to be explored. We assessed the risk for PPD and examined the changes in PDD and parenting stress following engagement in treatment.

Participants included 182 mothers with infants 7 months of age or younger in a shelter setting. After initial assessment of PPD and parenting stress, families participated in Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP). Post assessment was then conducted after 16 weeks.

CPP was successfully implemented with high levels of procedural and content fidelity (M = 0.99, SD = 0.04; M = 0.95, SD = 0.09, respectively), treatment satisfaction (94%; M = 4.83, SD = 0.52), and relatively moderate levels of intervention completion (53.8%). Following participation in CPP, mothers reported decreases in parenting stress (d = 0.51) and continuous PPD symptom severity (d = 0.43). The proportion of mothers with clinically elevated self-report PPD symptoms also decreased from 15.3 to 6.7% (p = .013). Lastly, improvements in total parenting stress predicted improvements in PPD symptom severity (B = 0.12, p < .001).

The findings highlight the relevance of screening for PPD among mothers experiencing homelessness. Most importantly, relationship-based interventions like CPP demonstrate promise in indirectly treating PPD for at-risk populations and within a shelter setting.