title: In-home intervention for depressive symptoms with low-income mothers of infants and toddlers in the United States.
abstract: Depressive symptoms in low-income mothers negatively affect infant-toddler development. This pilot study tested a short-term, home-based depressive symptom intervention with 16 African American and White, Non-Hispanic mothers in Early Head Start (EHS) programs who were randomly assigned to intervention and usual care/waiting list conditions. Mothers met in their homes with master's-prepared psychiatric mental health nurses who worked with them to improve their management of depressive symptoms and life issues, use of social support, and parenting. The intervention group showed a significantly greater decrease from baseline in depressive symptom severity at 8 and 16 weeks in contrast to the mothers receiving usual care. Observations of maternal interactions showed improvement in the intervention mothers. The results support testing on a larger scale.
authors.affiliation: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599-7460, USA. beeber@email.unc.edu
authors.forename: Linda S
authors.initials: LS
authors.lastname: Beeber
authors.forename: Diane
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Holditch-Davis
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Belyea
authors.forename: Sandra G
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Funk
authors.forename: Regina
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Canuso
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003863:Depression / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology / Q000451:nursing*; D005260:Female; D006266:Health Education / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008603:Mental Health; D009035:Mothers / Q000193:education / Q000523:psychology; D016487:Parenting; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011203:Poverty / Q000523:psychology; D012648:Self Care; D012944:Social Support; D015144:Southeastern United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D013997:Time Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D044465:White People / Q000706:statistics & numerical data