Maternal, Child Health and Neonatal Nursing Commons^™

Depression Screening On A Maternity Unit: A Mixed-Methods Evaluation Of Nurses’ Views And Implementation Strategies, Lisa Segre, Lauren Pollack, Rebecca Brock, Jeana Andrew, Michael O'Hara

Lisa S. Segre

Postpartum women often suffer clinically significant depressive symptoms, a problem addressed by nurse-delivered screening programs. In the past, success of these identification programs was measured in terms of screening rates; however, merely evaluating the screening rate does little to inform howto implement depression screening in clinical practice. This article describes the experiences of nurses in implementing depression screening on a maternity unit. We evaluate the practice qualitatively, by asking nurses to describe their screening strategies and their views about implementation, as well as quantitatively by assessing their screening rates and the number of women identified. Utilizing a framework of program …