Psychosocial interventions for women enrolled in alcohol treatment during pregnancy

Background Excessive alcohol use during pregnancy has been associated with adverse maternal and neonatal effects. It is therefore important to develop and evaluate effective interventions during this important time in a woman's life. To our knowledge there have been no systematic reviews of randomised control trials (RCT) in this population. Objectives To evaluate the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions in pregnant women enrolled in alcohol treatment programs for improving birth and neonatal outcomes, maternal abstinence and treatment retention. Search methods We searched the Cochrane Drugs and Alcohol Group's Trial register (December 2007); MEDLINE (1950 to 2007); PsycINFO (1806 to 2007); EMBASE (1974 to 2007); CINAHL (1982 to 2007) Selection criteria We sought to include randomised or quasi‐randomised studies comparing any psychosocial intervention versus pharmacological interventions or placebo or non‐intervention or another psychosocial intervention for treating alcohol dependence in pregnancy. Data collection and analysis Three review authors independently assessed trials for inclusion in review. Studies were to be assessed using standardized data extraction and quality assessment forms. No suitable trials were identified. Main results The search strategy identified 958 citations. 17 citations were deemed relevant for full text review, an additional 9 articles were retrieved through hand searching references, for a total of 26 articles. Following full text review no articles met the inclusion criteria. Data extraction and assessment of methodological quality were therefore not possible. Authors' conclusions The review question remains unanswered as there were no randomised control trials found relevant to the topic. There is a need for high quality randomised controlled trials to determine the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions in pregnant women enrolled in alcohol treatment programs.