2002 International International Biennial Scientific Meeting

WHAT IS IMPORTANT IN PERINATAL MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES?

Sandra Elliott, Anne Boocock, Myra Hunter and Andrew Hodgkiss

Psychology, University of Greenwich, London, and South London and Maudsley NHS Trust

s.a.elliott@greenwich.ac.uk

Background: Marce Society members are strong advocates for specialist services to address the mental health needs of perinatal women. However, there has been little research into how those who use, or refer to, them view such services. What do they think is important if services are to meet the needs of women with mental health problems during pregnancy or after childbirth? How can we evaluate services on these criteria?

Objectives and Method: This paper describes a qualitative grounded theory survey of stakeholder views of services for perinatal mental health problems, in an area without a specialist mental health service.

Statements derived from these interviews are used to construct a questionnaire to evaluate importance given to attributes by a range of stakeholders and to assess performance before and after the introduction of a specialist mental health service.

Results: Descriptions of desirable service attributes by users, GP's, midwives, obstetricians, local generalist mental health professionals and professionals in the neighbouring long established perinatal mental health service developed by Channi Kumar will be presented and contrasted.

The resulting questionnaire for quantitative analysis of service performance and improvements will be presented.

Conclusions: Conclusions will be drawn on both the essentials for a perinatal mental health service and on the appropriate form for evaluation.