Speaker
Description
Author: Anja Wittkowski (The University of Manchester)
Background: It has been well established that parenting influences a child’s early life experiences and their psychosocial development across the life span. The importance of supporting parents to succeed in meeting the challenges of their caregiving role has been recognised as a public health concern.
Around 27% of mothers experience mental health difficulties during the perinatal period. Within specialist perinatal mental health services women typically receive psychological interventions focused on maternal symptoms, with limited access to parenting interventions despite their established evidence-base in improving child and parent outcomes and reducing child maltreatment. In this presentation, Dr Anja Wittkowski will use the example of the IMAgINE feasibility study findings to discuss the acceptability and the benefits of offering a parenting intervention like Baby Triple P to mothers admitted to a Mother and Baby Unit (MBU) for severe mental health problems. The Triple P Positive Parenting Programme for Baby consisted of eight sessions, with the final four being delivered over the telephone following MBU discharge.
Methods: This multi-site, parallel-group, single-blind pilot randomised controlled trial compared the intervention with usual care versus usual care in mothers recruited from two MBUs in England. Thirty-four mothers were randomised, with 21 being retained to final follow up.
Results: Clinical outcomes indicated potential improvements in maternal parenting competence, mood and other mental health symptoms as well as bonding. Women and staff reported noting positive changes.
Discussion: Given those encouraging findings, we are now conducting another study to evaluate the feasibility of mothers with perinatal mental health problems engaging in the online and self-directed version of this parenting intervention, whilst receiving treatment as usual by the specialist perinatal mental health community service. This study is a single-site, non-randomised feasibility and acceptability trial with participants receiving the self-paced online version of the Triple P for Baby Positive Parenting Programme. Dr Wittkowski will report on any preliminary observations arising from this study as well to illustrate whether or not parenting support could or should play a supplementary role in the treatment of perinatal mental health problems.
| Conflict of interest | None. |
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