Music and Motherhood: Europe

Supporting and evaluating the European roll-out of singing sessions for postpartum depression

Partnership with The World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe

Following our past and ongoing research around group singing interventions for postpartum depression in the UK, we also want to know how such an intervention may need to be adapted to benefit women in other countries and different cultural contexts.

This project therefore focuses on exploring the feasibility of implementation and perceived impact of a 10-week group singing intervention for new mothers in Romania and Denmark eliciting signs of postpartum depression.

Data are being collected from up to 48 women with a score ≥10 on the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) participating in a 10-week group singing intervention, as well as a range of project stakeholders. We are looking at:

  1. Feasibility of implementation: assessed through qualitative data (e.g., focus groups, interviews) and quantitative data (e.g., the Feasibility of Intervention Measure [FIM]).
  2. Perceived impact: assessed through participant surveys that include mental health measures from singing intervention participants (at weeks 1, 6, 10) and focus groups.

Descriptive statistics will be used to analyse quantitative data. Framework method and thematic analysis will be used to analyse qualitative data.

We hope that the protocol and learnings from this project will enable other countries to adapt and implement this project globally. We are currently exploring implementation of the intervention in Italy as one step to achieving this.

The research protocol was published in BMJ Open in 2022.

This work builds on our other studies, Music and Motherhood and SHAPER (Melodies for Mums).

Funders

Nordic Culture Fund, Wellcome Trust, Region Midtjylland (Denmark) and the Cluj Culture Centre (Romania)

Programme area

Clinical trials and implementation science, partnerships and networks

Status

Ongoing

Partners

Den Kreative Skole in Region Midtjylland (Central Denmark Region)
Cluj Culture Centre in Cluj, Transylvania (Romania)
Breathe Arts Health Research (UK)
The World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe

Research Team

Dr Katey Warran

Dr Daisy Fancourt