None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
The purpose of this study was to discover better ways to care for the psychological wellbeing of mothers, particularly in supporting mothers to cope with difficult thoughts and feelings about their childbirth and early feeding experiences. Participation in the study involved the completion of an online survey asking questions about your own coping, childbirth, and feeding experiences. After completing this survey, participants had a 50/50 chance of being given immediate access to a brief information package intended to support their wellbeing. The package included information on self-compassion, a compassion exercise, a tip sheet, and SMS reminders. Participants were randomised (like the flip of a coin) to either receive this information package straight away or after an 8-week waiting period. This allowed us to identify whether or not the package was helpful to mothers who use it. We anticipated that those who received access to the online self-compassion intervention would report greater wellbeing in a number of areas at an 8-week follow-up period.
Interventions
Participants completed an online self-report survey on Qualtrics. They were asked to provide their email address and mobile phone number at the end of the first (Time 1) set of questionnaires. This enabled us to send an SMS message and email (containing the link to the Time 2 questionnaire) to remind all participants to complete the Time 2 questionnaire 8 weeks after they had completed the Time 1 questionnaire. It also allowed us to send SMS messages (as part of the intervention) to prompt inter
Participants completed an online self-report survey on Qualtrics. They were asked to provide their email address and mobile phone number at the end of the first (Time 1) set of questionnaires. This enabled us to send an SMS message and email (containing the link to the Time 2 questionnaire) to remind all participants to complete the Time 2 questionnaire 8 weeks after they had completed the Time 1 questionnaire. It also allowed us to send SMS messages (as part of the intervention) to prompt intervention group participants to engage in the self-compassion intervention. Intervention group participants received up to 10 SMS messages over the course of the experiment. The online intervention (delivered to the intervention group only) comprised (i) a brief web-based informational video, that began with a psychoeducation component on compassion and its relevance to mothers of infants (from birth to 24 months), followed by simple strategies to prompt self-compassion in daily life; (ii) an audio-guided self-compassion meditation, which women were encouraged to listen to and use to guide their own self-compassion meditation practice for short periods (e.g. 2-5 minutes) each day for the next month; and (iii) a simple tip sheet summarising key points that was also made available to participants to download and print. The accompanying weekly SMS prompts were each based on the tips from this tip sheet. Intervention participants were encouraged to participate in the self-compassion meditation through the website and SMS reminders. Intervention participants' use of the resources was monitored through SMS reminders, and self-report at the follow-up survey (participants were asked to elect the frequency with which they accessed the intervention resources).
Sponsors
The University of Queensland, Parenting and Family Support Centre
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Educational / counselling / training
Masking
Open (masking not used)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
Women aged 18+ years who had given birth to a child in the past 2 years and resided in Australia or New Zealand.
Exclusion criteria
Women who were younger than 18 years, who had given birth to a child more than 2 years ago, or who resided outside of Australia and new Zealand.
Outcome results
None listed