Browsing by Author "Chelleset, Julia"

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    The Perinatal Mental Health Project: A qualitative evaluation.
    (University of Western Cape, 2005) Chelleset, Julia; Andipatin, Michelle
    This study evaluates, qualitatively, the PMIIP (Perinatal Mental Health Project), which involves routine screening of women, during the antenatal period, for postnatal depression (PhID) and other mental conditions related to childbirth. This antenatal screening facility is offered at the LMOU (Liesbeeck, Maternity, Obstetric Unit. Women who appear to be at risk are offered counselling by a volunteer psychologist or clinical social worker providing a potentially excellent intervention for women during the perinatal period. Women, particularly mothers, in South Africa are subject to social stressors, which are exacerbated by class inequalities within the health care system. Motherhood also requires a total change of role, resulting in the loss of former psychological identity and adds the stress of mediating family relations as the balance of relationships and power are affected. However, most societies glorify motherhood and refuse to consider that it may have a dark side and this contributes to the imprisonment of women within a sometimes-difficult role. Feminist Standpoint theory provides a theoretical framework for this study as this woman centred viewpoint suggests that there should be caution when labelling women with postnatal depression whereby it is seen as an illness, interpreting, distress as individual pathology. On the whole perinatal mental health problems have been pathologized and medicalized denying the social conditions that women may endure and simultaneously marginalizing the validity of women's voices. This study was essentially exploratory in nature, using qualitative methods to obtain the data. The research drew from Guba& Lincoln's Fourth Generation Evaluation method as it views cultural and political elements as enhancing the evaluative process. Consistent with this method the major stakeholders of the PMHP were selected as participants. This included six women who and been screened and counselled at the LMOU as well as six midwives, to counsellors, a psychiatrist and the project manager. The data was analysed thematically. The results suggest that the PMIIP has provided an excellent source of social support but also highlights the difficulties of implementing a project of this nature within an under resourced biomedical context. This research will hopefully contribute towards a paradigm shift by highlighting women's social location within the construction of perinatal mental health problems.