Midwives' knowledge of antenatal depression

Abstract

Studies have shown that midwives are the key professionals in predicting those pregnant women who are at risk or who are already experiencing some form of mental illness including antenatal depression. This study explores the midwives' knowledge of antenatal depression. The main objective of this study is to examine whether midwives are knowledgeable about antenatal depression or not. Ethical approval was granted from the Midwifery Studies Dissertation Panel, the Manager of Midwifery Services, Director of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and from the University Research Ethics Committee. For the purpose of this study a quantitative approach was used. A questionnaire was distributed amongst all the midwives (26 midwives) working with pregnant women in order to assess their knowledge about antenatal depression. Participants were chosen using the convenience sampling. The response rate was 100%. Results were analysed using simple descriptive statistics and content analysis. Findings show that a number of the questions were answered correctly by the participants. However, there are some areas where knowledge needs to be improved. Although midwives have knowledge about antenatal depression further training is needed to increase the level of knowledge amongst midwives. Recommendations include the need for allocating more time during the booking session and antenatal visits, better use of Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) that has been validated as a screening tool which could be used to detect antenatal depression and the need for specialization of midwives in this particular area. In addition the midwifery curriculum should give more importance to this subject and should also allocate more time for students to work in the clinical area specifically to Perinatal Mental Health Clinic in order to work with women who are experiencing depression.