The effectiveness of online unified transdiagnostic treatment on psychological distress, mindfulness, meta-emotion and psychological empowerment of pregnant women

Due to the report of World Health Organization, the mental health problems of pregnant women are one of the most important health challenges; therefore, identifying new therapeutic interventions is a necessity in this field.

Determining the effectiveness of online unified transdiagnostic treatment on the variables of psychological distress, mindfulness, meta-emotion, and psychological empowerment of pregnant women.

The present study was a clinical trial with pre-test, post-test, and follow-up. The statistical population included all pregnant women referring to health care centers in Boroujerd city in 2020. Thirty pregnant women were selected by convenience sampling which randomly assigned to the intervention and control groups. Research instruments included the demographic and pregnancy information questionnaire, Cohen Perceived Stress Scale (CPSS-14), Van den Bergh Pregnancy Anxiety Scale (PRAQ), Edinburg Depression Scale (EPDS), Bauer Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ), Mitmansgruber meta-emotion scale (MES) and Kameda prenatal psychological empowerment scale (KPES). Data were analyzed by the analysis of variance with repeated measures and SPSS software, version 26.

The findings showed that unified transdiagnostic treatment was effective to reduce the psychological distress (P<0.05), negative meta-emotion (P<0.05) and promoting positive meta-emotion (P<0.05) and psychological empowerment (P<0.01) in subjects, but it had no significant effect on mindfulness (P>0.05).

Based on the results of current study, applying the unified transdiagnostic treatment can reduce the emotional disorder of pregnant women and increase their psychological empowerment.