Table 3 Suggested solutions for the provision of a maternal mental health service
Sub-theme | Quote | |
|---|---|---|
Guidelines | Q 26 | “I think there should be guidelines …” (A4, KII, Doctor) |
Q 27 | “There should be guidelines so that there’s a kind of purpose, there’s a reason why you are doing it, so you can’t just be screening women with no purpose or no guidelines.” (A8, KII, Doctor) | |
Q 28 | “I just wish it becomes part of the routine screening of our patients because if you are able to detect … those with such conditions or who need help early that will prevent us from getting to them late” (A20, KII, Doctor) | |
Q 29 | “if it is a poster that I turn, and I look, and I see something that reminding me that ‘we must ask this’ it’s helpful … something so people will be reminded everywhere in your hospital ‘mental health in women is important” (A6, KII, Doctor) | |
Antenatal screening | Q 30 | “We could include it into our antenatal book then routinely, and postnatal of course, routinely when the patient comes as part of the questions we ask …” (A12, KII, Doctor) |
Q 31 | “… at the first visit, the booking visit, if we had … a structured questionnaire or a tool that could be used, it will go a long way so that right from booking...potential problems are picked up early enough...” (A16, KII, Doctor) | |
Education for mothers | Q 32 | “It should be part of...the antenatal clinic, because when they come we give them talks …” (A20, KII, Doctor) |
Education of healthcare providers | Q 33 | “… we need to have public education, we need to educate people, we need to educate ourselves as healthcare providers, we need to educate the pregnant women, we need to come up with policies, we need to improve and set up a structured plan in a way to attack this situation …” (A3, KII, Doctor) |
“… we need to train [healthcare providers] we have to get the techniques to do it … and you need to get things in place to do it...” (A16, KII, Doctor) | ||
Multidisciplinary team approach | Q 34 | “I would say that there should be separate unit in the antenatal clinic where a psychiatrist or psychiatric nurse or psychologist could do the screening and counselling (A1, KII, Doctor) |
Q 35 | “… having a multi-disciplinary approach to it involving the physicians coming to [the antenatal clinic] some days … if they are there at the same clinic it might improve the management than losing and managing them …” (A9, KII, Doctor) | |
Q 36 | “I think we need psychiatry units … so that we know where we are directing our patients to when it comes to mental health” (C, FGD, Junior nurse-midwife) | |