Follow-up for improving psychological well being for women after a miscarriage.
The trials of one-off counselling after miscarriage haven't shown benefit — if I want help, what would ongoing bereavement or trauma-focused therapy look like instead of a single debrief session?
Top of the evidence hierarchy, independently funded. how we score evidence
Caveat on this rating: Dated: the search closed 31 December 2011 and the review has not been updated, so it predates the trauma-focused work of the last decade. Its conclusion applies to brief generic counselling as trialled up to 2011 and should not be read as evidence against structured psychological treatment for post-loss PTSD, depression, or complicated grief.
Six randomised trials involving 1,001 women were pooled, and the evidence was insufficient to show that counselling after miscarriage improves psychological well-being. Three trials comparing a single counselling session with none found no significant difference in anxiety, grief, depression, avoidance, or self-blame; one trial of three hour-long sessions produced mixed results on different subscales. This is an evidence gap, not a demonstration that support is useless — the trials were small, brief, and used inconsistent outcome measures.
Worth asking
The trials of one-off counselling after miscarriage haven't shown benefit — if I want help, what would ongoing bereavement or trauma-focused therapy look like instead of a single debrief session?
What to watch for
Evidence quality tells you whether to trust the finding — not whether the treatment is safe. These are the risks this research reports.
- Fertility & pregnancy risk
Source
Follow-up for improving psychological well being for women after a miscarriage. — Murphy FA, Lipp A, Powles DL. (2012)
Top-tier peer-reviewed journal
Read the source: https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD008679.pub2
DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD008679.pub2
How this was scored
- Study design
- Systematic review of randomised trials
- Funding
- Independently funded
- Published in
- Top-tier peer-reviewed journal
- Sample size
- 1,001
- Preregistered
- Yes
- Conflicts disclosed
- Yes
- Independent of proponent
- Yes
- Retracted
- No
Read the full scoring rubric, including what it can't tell you.
Published August 19, 2026.
Where we put this study in context
Questions
How strong is the evidence behind this?
Resolv rates this source "gold standard". Top of the evidence hierarchy, independently funded. It scores 97 out of 100 on our published rubric. One caveat travels with that badge: Dated: the search closed 31 December 2011 and the review has not been updated, so it predates the trauma-focused work of the last decade. Its conclusion applies to brief generic counselling as trialled up to 2011 and should not be read as evidence against structured psychological treatment for post-loss PTSD, depression, or complicated grief. The score is calculated from recorded facts about the source — study design, funding, publication venue, sample size, preregistration — not typed in by an editor.
What is the source for this?
Follow-up for improving psychological well being for women after a miscarriage. — Murphy FA, Lipp A, Powles DL. (2012). Published in: Top-tier peer-reviewed journal. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD008679.pub2. The full source is linked on this page so you can read it yourself.
Who paid for this research, and does that matter?
Study design: Systematic review of randomised trials. Funding: Independently funded. The researchers were independent of whoever benefits from the result. Industry sponsorship is one of the most reliably measured biases in medicine, which is why funding carries real weight in the score rather than sitting in a footnote.
Is this medical advice?
This is information to bring to your prescriber, not medical advice and not a reason to change anything on your own. Nothing here is an instruction to stop or reduce a medication. If you are in crisis, call or text 988.
This is information to bring to your prescriber, not medical advice and not a reason to change anything on your own. Nothing here is an instruction to stop or reduce a medication. If you are in crisis, call or text 988.