None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
The perinatal period, encompassing pregnancy and the first year postpartum, is a time of immense change where women are faced with new challenges, stress, and high emotions (Chlebowski, 2013; Newman et al., 2007). Previous coping strategies may prove inadequate when faced with sleep deprivation, a crying infant, physical pain, role transformation, and relationship stress (Geerling et al., 2019; Sved Williams & Apter, 2017; Wilson & Donachie, 2018). Women with personality vulnerability may become emotionally unstable (Sved Williams et al., 2018; Yelland et al., 2015), and existing symptoms of borderline personality disorder (BPD) may be exacerbated (Dunn et al., 2020). The National Health and Medical Research Council (2012) guidelines recommend that women with BPD who are pregnant, have infants or young children “should be provided with interventions designed to support parenting skills and attachment relationships”. As dysregulation (Apter at al., 2017) and neurobiological disturbances (Newman et al., 2011) can occur in infants of mothers with BPD by three months of age, early intervention is imperative. We will evaluate the impact of the provision of psychoeducation material in pregnant women with BPD/BPD traits compared to general information about parenting and mental health. It is hypothesised that emotional regulation, obstetric/birth outcomes, postnatal maternal behaviours will be less compromised for women who have completed psychoeducation compared to women who have completed general information about parenting and mental health.
Interventions
Participants allocated to the intervention group will be sent a link via email or SMS to participate in an online psychoeducation program via Qualtrics within one week of completing screening questionnaires. Modelled on Mother Infant Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (MI-DBT; Sved Williams et al., 2018), the brief digital psychoeducation intervention will take approximately thirty minutes to complete, presented as written information. The psychoeducation will address how past trauma can lead to emot
Participants allocated to the intervention group will be sent a link via email or SMS to participate in an online psychoeducation program via Qualtrics within one week of completing screening questionnaires. Modelled on Mother Infant Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (MI-DBT; Sved Williams et al., 2018), the brief digital psychoeducation intervention will take approximately thirty minutes to complete, presented as written information. The psychoeducation will address how past trauma can lead to emotional dysregulation (Blankley et al., 2015; Pare-Miron et al., 2016), and list appropriate parenting practices such as infant soothing skills (Geerling et al., 2019; Sved Williams et al., 2018), strategies for emotional regulation, behaviour awareness (Eyden et al., 2016), mother-infant dyadic interaction, empathy, and sensitivity (Newman & Stevenson, 2005; Newman et al., 2007). Post completion, the intervention group will receive a brief 5-question multiple choice quiz to ensure that content was actively received. Participants will have the option of downloading the psychoeducation, and will be sent two email reminders of content to ensure memory retention, approximately one week and one month after.
Sponsors
Flinders University
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Prevention
Masking
Open (masking not used)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
• Pregnant women less than 37 weeks gestation with traits of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) (as indicated by a high score on the Zanarini Rating Scale for BPD) • Reside in South Australia (SA) • English speaking • Valid mobile phone number and/or email address • Aged eighteen years or over
Exclusion criteria
• Pregnant women greater than 37 weeks gestation without traits of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) (as indicated by a low score on the Zanarini Rating Scale for BPD) • Reside in South Australia (SA) • English speaking • Valid mobile phone number and/or email address • Aged over eighteen years
Outcome results
None listed