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EcoCorazon
A COMMUNITY INTERVENTION TO REDUCE STRESS AND ENHANCE RESILIENCE AMONG WOMEN
Project Objectives
Depressive symptoms among women of childbearing age is the single largest contributor to the global burden of mental health disorders (Rieder et al., 2019). In Ecuador, a recent country-wide survey estimated that approximately 22% of women in childbearing years experience postpartum depressive symptoms (Parra-Parra et al., 2022). Our own work in the province of Esmeraldas found 15% of childbearing women experienced significant depressive symptoms and 2% reported suicidal ideation (Ghahyazi et al., 2024), while access to referral and counseling services in the region is limited.
The Ecorazón study began in 2026 and is ongoing.
Although evidence-based, psychosocial interventions for maternal mental health conditions are available, safe and effective (Bass et al., 2013; Keynejad et al., 2020; Tol et al., 2015), developing culturally responsive interventions that are feasible and effective in low resource, high need contexts, such as the province or Esmeraldas or town of Borbon, is an urgent need. Our study aims to 1) culturally adapt the evidence-based, psychosocial mental health and parenting intervention, ‘Mom Power’ (Forer et al., 2023; Jester et al., 2023; Mucka et al., 2017; Muzik et al., 2015; Rosenblum et al., 2017) and 2) pilot implement and evaluate our adapted intervention to understand its acceptability, feasibility, and efficacy.
Project Activities
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