title: Effective treatment of perinatal depression for women in debt and lacking financial empowerment in a low-income country.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Poverty may moderate the effect of treatment of depression in low-income countries.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To assess poverty and lack of empowerment as moderators of a cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT)-based intervention for perinatal depression in rural Pakistan.
  
  
  METHODS
  Using secondary analysis of data from a randomised controlled trial (trial registration: ISRCTN65316374) we identified predictors of depression at 1-year follow-up and moderators of the intervention (n = 791).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Predictors of follow-up depression included household debt, the participant not being empowered to manage household finance and the interaction terms for these variables with the trial arm. Effect sizes for women with and without household debt were 0.80 and 0.55 respectively. The effect size for women in debt and not empowered financially was 0.94 compared with 0.50 for women with neither of these factors.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our findings demonstrate the importance of household debt and lack of financial empowerment of women as important maintaining factors of depression in low-income countries and our locally developed intervention tackled these problems successfully.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychology, Health and Society, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK.
authors.forename: Atif
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rahman
authors.forename: Siham
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sikander
authors.forename: Abid
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Malik
authors.forename: Ikhlaque
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Ahmed
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Tomenson
authors.forename: Francis
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Creed
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D015928:Cognitive Behavioral Therapy / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods*; D019052:Depression, Postpartum / Q000191:economics / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income; D010154:Pakistan; D011203:Poverty; D011209:Power, Psychological; D012423:Rural Health; D055815:Young Adult