2002 International International Biennial Scientific Meeting

INTRODUCTION OF ROUTINE PSYCHOSOCIAL ASSESSMENTS FOR EXPECTANT WOMEN IN SOUTH WEST SYDNEY

Bryanne Barnett, Stephen Matthey, Tracey White and The Integrated Perinatal Care Team

Paediatric Mental Health Service, South West Sydney Area Health Service

bryanne.barnatt@swsahs.nsw.gov.au; Stephen.matthey@swsahs.nsw.gov.au; tracey.white@swsahs.nsw.gov.au

Objective: To describe the introduction and evaluation of a routine psychosocial assessment of women attending the antenatal clinic of a public hospital in South West Sydney.

Method: A psychosocial assessment protocol was developed, consisting of 31 questions based upon the literature, and the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale,. The purpose of this protocol was to identify women who are currently distressed or experiencing difficulty in their pregnancy, as well as to alert the health services to women that may find parenting difficulty after the birth. The evaluation consisted of a) analysing the frequency of responses to the set of questions (n = 550 women); b) interviewing women (n = approximately 100) about their perceptions of being asked these questions; c) interviewing the midwives (n = 14) who administered the protocol in the antenatal clinic.

Results: The evaluation indicated that some questions needed to be altered or deleted. Highlights about the frequencies of endorsement of some of the psychosocial questions will be presented. Women were in the main favourable to being asked these psychosocial questions. Reservations were more often expressed about questions that were already being asked by the hospital staff prior to the introduction of these additional psychosocial questions. The majority of the midwives found some aspects of the expanded psychosocial health assessment helpful, but were concerned about the length of time it took and repetition of standard booking history questions. The clinical service that is then offered to these women antenatally will also be discussed.

Conclusions: The introduction of a more comprehensive assessment of women's psychosocial health at the booking-in visit in the hospital antenatal clinic was evaluated positively by women. It is likely that paring down the length of this assessment will be seen as beneficial by the midwives. We shall discuss the implications of this routine assessment in the light of what has currently been published on screening pregnant women in the antenatal period.