Postnatal mental illness : towards designing an assessment tool for Malaysian mothers

Abstract

Postnatal mental illness is a major public health concerns worldwide but commonly underdiagnosed within clinical practices. In Malaysia, there is a lack of fundamental knowledge and perception among healthcare practitioners and postnatal mothers regarding postnatal mental illness, which hinder development of relevant assessment tool. This study aims to explore the views of healthcare practitioners and postnatal mothers on the signs and symptom, causes, assessment, management and potential mechanism in assessing postnatal mental illnesses which contribute in recognizing the domains needed in an assessment tool. This qualitative study was conducted using semi-structured interviews involving 28 healthcare practitioners and 6 postnatal mothers across 18 maternal and child clinics and six government hospitals in the states of Pahang, Terengganu, Perak, Negeri Sembilan and Klang Valley. The data were analysed using thematic analysis. The healthcare practitioners’ and mothers’ views on postnatal mental illness were reflected in three themes, namely conceptualization of postnatal mental illness, perceived causes of postnatal mental illness, and lastly roles and challenges in assessing and managing postnatal mental illness. According to the respondents, they were able to describe signs and symptoms of postnatal mental illness although with different depth of understanding, similarly with the causes that contributes to the postnatal mental illness. However, healthcare professional generally agreed that there is a lack of fundamental knowledge in addressing postnatal mental illness and readily available assessment tools are less effective for use in Malaysia context. Thus, the introduction of a relevant assessment tools for addressing postnatal mental illness among Malaysian mothers is crucial in addressing this issue.