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Learning Objective 1: Recognize how perinatal evidence based guidelines can be incorporated into in-patient and out-patient settings.
Learning Objective 2: Formulate a plan to increase postpartum depression awareness and screening within your community.
Purpose: The purpose of the project was to increase postpartum depression awareness and identification in a metropolitan area by developing patient and staff education materials and by utilizing the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale as part of routine postpartum care.
Clinical appraisal of literature/best evidence: Evidence-based practice guidelines recommend routine postpartum depression patient education and screening. They also support that all nurses who provide care to new mothers should have postpartum depression education. Despite feeling confident diagnosing postpartum depression, the literature suggests few obstetrical providers’ document postpartum depression screening scores or postpartum depression counseling.
Integration into practice: The project had three distinct components. The first component involved developing a postpartum depression patient education brochure that would be used by two large metropolitan hospitals as a component of all postpartum patients’ discharge education. The second component involved developing and implementing training for registered nurses involved in mother/baby care at local hospitals and obstetrical practices. The focus of the educational training was comprehensive and emphasized the nurse’s role in patient education and screening. A postpartum depression module for an on-line learning system was developed. Finally, in participating obstetrical practices, formal postpartum depression screening using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale at the postpartum visit was implemented.
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