Massage and relaxation therapies' effects on depressed adolescent mothers

Adolescence, Winter, 1996 by Tiffany Field, Nancy Grizzle, Frank Scafidi, Saul Schanberg

The State Anxiety Inventory for Children. The STAIC is an adaptation of the State/Trait Anxiety Inventory specifically designed for the study of anxiety in school-age children and adolescents who are below average in reading level. The inventory consists of 20 items such as "I feel: very relaxed, relaxed or not relaxed." The test requires approximately five minutes to complete and was administered prior to and immediately after the massage/relaxation therapy sessions.

Physiological and biochemical measures. Pulse rate was measured by taking the subject's radial pulse for thirty seconds prior to, following, and thirty minutes after the end of each session. Cortisol samples were collected at the same times. Due to the twenty-minute lag in cortisol change, saliva samples reflected cortisol levels at twenty minutes prior to the session, ten minutes into the session, and ten minutes after the end of the session.

Saliva cortisol samples were obtained by having subjects place a cotton dental swab dipped in sugar-free lemonade crystals along their gumline for thirty seconds. The swab was drawn into a syringe and then the saliva was inserted into a microcentrifuge tube. The samples were frozen and assayed for cortisol levels at Duke University.

Urine samples were collected under the supervision of a psychology graduate student. The samples were frozen and also sent to Duke University for an assay of cortisol.

RESULTS

T-tests were first conducted to ensure that the groups were comparable on demographic variables including maternal age, SES, ethnicity, and initial BDI scores. It was found that the groups did not differ on any of these variables. Group by repeated measures MANOVAs were conducted to compare the immediate and longer term effects of the massage and relaxation therapies. The two repeated measures were the therapy periods (pre and post) and the first-last day assessments. Post hoc comparisons were made by Bonferroni t tests.

A significant MANOVA followed by several significant group by repeated measures interaction effects on the ANOVAs suggested the following: (1) state anxiety decreased for the massage therapy group following the first and last day therapy sessions and only on the first day for the relaxation group; (2) lower POMS depression scores following the massage on the first and last days; (3) group by repeated measures interaction effects were significant for all of the Behavior Observation Scale ratings except activity level. These favored the massage therapy group including: (a) a higher state rating after therapy on day 10; (b) higher vocalization ratings after therapy on days 1 and 10; (c) lower anxiety ratings after the massage therapy sessions on days 1 and 10; (d) higher cooperation ratings for the MT group after therapy on days 1 and 10; (e) fidgetiness decreased for the MT group on both the first and last days; (4) decrease in pulse after massage therapy on days 1 and 10; (5) lower salivary cortisol levels after massage therapy; and (6) lower urine cortisol levels on the last day versus the first day of massage therapy.