Advancing health through research: A scoping review of and model for adjunctive psychosocial interventions to improve outcomes for perinatal women with bipolar disorder.

BACKGROUND: We aimed to identify randomized clinical trials (RCTs) which evaluated the efficacy of adjunctive psychosocial interventions to improve outcomes during the perinatal period for women with bipolar disorder (BD).

METHODS: We scanned the literature to identify RCTs evaluating the efficacy of adjunctive psychosocial therapies or interventions provided during the perinatal period to women with BD. We searched from 1946 to July 2020 using Embase, Ovid Medline, PsycINFO, and Scopus. We then searched for future, current, and recently completed RCTs described on www.ClinicalTrials.gov.

RESULTS: This scoping review (1946 - July 2020) revealed no published RCTs for this population. The findings expose an important gap in research and knowledge, as well as a health disparity.

CONCLUSION: We heuristically tied a mechanistic stress reduction model to relevant findings. The initial hypotheses are informed by effective stress reducing psychosocial interventions for: a) people with BD outside the perinatal period and b) perinatal women with major depressive disorder (MDD may improve the health of perinatal women with BD). We hypothesize that the perinatal trajectory of health for women with BD will improve by adding psychosocial interventions or therapies to treatment as usual. We propose maternal stress reduction as a potential mediator/mechanism.

LIMITATIONS: Findings reported are limited to the methods of a scoping review. Reproductive status tends to be a missing variable; we highlight the need for its inclusion. Interdisciplinary, collaborative research to improve the treatment outcome for perinatal women with BD is warranted and ripe for advancement.