Incorporating early pregnancy mental health screening and management into routine maternal care: experience from the Rajarata Pregnancy Cohort (RaPCo), Sri Lanka

Abstract

Early identification of mental health problems in pregnancy in low-income and middle-income countries is scarcely reported. We present the experience of a programme assimilating screening and management of antenatal anxiety and depression in conjunction with the Rajarata Pregnancy Cohort, in Sri Lanka. We adopted a two-stage screening approach to identify the symptoms and the reasons for anxiety and depression. Pregnant women (n=3074), less than 13 weeks of period of gestation underwent screening with the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS). Scores were positive among 23% and 14% of women in the first and second trimesters, respectively. Clinical (telephone) interviews (n=78, response 56.9%) were held for women having high EPDS scores to screen for clinical depression using the ‘mental health GAP’ tool. Targeted interventions including counselling, financial and social support and health education were employed. The procedure was repeated in the second trimester with in-person clinical interviews and inquiry into intentional self-harm. Our findings indicated that (1) the majority of mental health problems in early pregnancy were anxiety related to early pregnancy-associated conditions manageable at the primary healthcare level, (2) coupling mental health screening using psychometric tools with clinical interviews facilitates targeted patient-centred care, (3) the majority of intentional self-harm during pregnancy is not in the routine health surveillance system and (4) promoting women to attend the psychiatry clinic in tertiary care hospital has been difficult. Following the experience, we propose a model for mental health service provision in routine pregnancy care programme starting from early pregnancy.