Differences in Screening and Treatment for Antepartum Versus Postpartum Patients: Are Providers Implementing the Guidelines of Care for Perinatal Depression?

Background: National guidelines recommend universal depression screening for perinatal patients and provide treatment recommendations to prevent adverse maternal/child health outcomes. However, providers rarely screen all patients, and most women with perinatal depression remain undertreated. This study investigated predictors of universal screening and guideline-congruent care for perinatal depression by obstetrician-gynecologists and examined differences in practices with pregnant and postpartum patients.

OB CARES--The Obstetric Clinics and Resources Study: providers' perceptions of addressing perinatal depression--a qualitative study.

Objective: We conducted a qualitative study to understand how prenatal care providers perceive influences on their delivery of perinatal depression care. Given that depression screening protocols were in place at the clinics where we sampled providers, we hypothesized that clinic- and system-level factors such as resources, training opportunities and coordination would be dominant in influencing provider decisions.

Methods: We conducted semistructured interviews with 20 prenatal care providers from six obstetric clinics.