The Use of Information and Communication Technologies in Perinatal Depression Screening: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Perinatal mental illness refers to psychiatric disorders that exist during pregnancy and up to 1 year after childbirth. The aim of this systematic review was to discuss the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) on perinatal depression (PeD) screening in the past three decades. Published articles were searched between 1990 and 2018, both in English and Spanish. In the search, we used different keywords, such as "pregnancy," "depression," or "technology" in ScienceDirect, PubMed-NCBI, and Web of Science. We found 10 articles that combined the use of ICTs and a focus on PeD screening. Studied periods included pregnancy (n = 2) and postpartum (n = 8). The telephone was the most commonly used communication method (n = 5), followed by the Internet (n = 4). One investigation used both, the telephone and the Internet. The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale was the most frequently used screening measure (n = 8). The proportion of depressed perinatal women varied across studies depending on the pregnancy status and the cutoff values used, showing a very broad range between 5.8 and 51.9 percent. Despite the increasing popularity of ICTs in health settings, their use in perinatal mental health screening is still rare. Overall, encouraging findings have been reported when using ICTs for screening of PeD, such as eliminating the need to travel to the health center to conduct the screening and allowing for a wider dissemination. However, more research is needed to support their inclusion in perinatal care.

Keywords: ICTs; depression; postpartum; pregnancy; screening.