Facilitating the Research-to-Practice Pipeline through Partnerships: Transitioning a New Peripartum Depression Treatment into the Community

DAVID SOMMERFELD, PhD, MSW
University of California, San Diego

Peripartum depression affects many women and has significant negative consequences for women and their children when left untreated. The recently developed Sleep and Light Intervention (SALI) has been assessed in research contexts to be effective for treating peripartum depression. SALI is a non-pharmacological, rapid-acting and low-cost peripartum depression home treatment that entails one night of adjusted sleep followed by two weeks of using a portable bright white lightbox for 30 minutes daily, with differential timing based upon whether pregnant or postpartum. To ensure that SALI is a viable treatment option for women with limited resources and/or access to care, we are now building upon an existing collaboration between academics, government, and community-based service providers to inform the transition of SALI into community settings by training clinicians from the Accessible Depression and Anxiety Peripartum Treatment (ADAPT) program to integrate SALI into their treatment services.

An existing collaboration engaged in transitioning SALI from research settings into community programs that treat peripartum depression among low-income, historically underserved women.

UCSD investigators developed materials and conducted trainings to teach ADAPT clinicians how to administer both the pregnant and postpartum versions of SALI. UCSD collected qualitative and quantitative feedback from ADAPT clinicians regarding the trainings and utilization of SALI and from patients about their perceptions of SALI feasibility, acceptability and effectiveness.

Preliminary data from the ongoing pilot study indicated that SALI was perceived by ADAPT staff to have high levels of: 1) appropriateness for patients and 2) clinician feasibility for administering SALI. While there was greater than expected initial hesitancy to try SALI (which has informed revised training materials and patient communication), patient assessments indicated that participating in SALI was a positive experience and associated with improved wellbeing. Additionally, ADAPT staff requested that SALI implementation be expanded to include monolingual Spanish speaking patients.

The findings indicate SALI has potential for widespread adoption and implementation by clinicians to treat peripartum depression in community settings. This study is guiding the development and refinement of materials to support clinician and patient utilization of SALI with a specific emphasis on addressing health inequities by ensuring feasibility of SALI in low resource settings. This study also highlights the importance of developing ongoing partnerships between academics, the public sector, and community-based organizations to facilitate the research-to-practice pipeline and promote development and sustainable implementation of treatments that can address health inequities.