Effekten av fysisk aktivitet vid postpartum depression : En litteraturstudie.

Sammanfattning: Background: Postpartum depression is a common complication after birth and affects approximately 13-19% of women each year. Many women currently have antidepressant drugs prescribed and would therefore benefit from a treatment option without adverse side effects, in this case physical activity. Physical activity is considered to have an effect on mental health in general as exercise breaks down the destructive and negative thoughts you have by distracting. Aim: The aim of this study was to determine whether physical activity can affect the mental well-being of women with postpartum depression. Method: A descriptive literature study based on 10 quantitative original articles with different study designs. Nine out of the 10 articles included were intervention studies. The databases Pubmed, CINAHL, Google Scholar and psycINFO were used to gather information for this literature study. Quality review was carried out using review templates. Results: Eight out of ten articles showed that physical activity had a positive effect and reduced depressive postpartum symptoms. What kind of physical activity the different studies chose for their intervention were varied, as well as the measuring instruments used to measure depression symptoms in postpartum women. The result was divided and presented in three categories; group training, home-based training and group training with home-based training as a complement. Conclusion: The result of our study show that physical activity has an effect on the mental well-being of women with postpartum depression. The degree of depression decreases in points and one could also see an elevated quality of life after interventions in the form of physical activity. However, to strengthen this result and to get enough evidence, more research is needed on the subject.