A Stepped-Collaborative Perinatal Depression Model.

Perinatal depression (PD) screening has been defined for decades, but treatment remains ill-defined, with few mental health (MH) providers helping depressed women during this delicate time. The nurse practitioner (NP) is in a position to help women through PD with the use of a collaborative treatment model. This DNP (doctor of nursing practice) inquiry investigated a stepped collaborative care model (CCM) to see whether the PD model improved time from referral to evaluation and decreased depression scores over a 6-month treatment period for women who came to an NP MH practice. After obtaining approval from the institutional review board and the clients, the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale was administered to 37 women at psychiatric evaluation and subsequent MH visits over a 6-month period. Time from referral to evaluation and depression scores were analyzed. The CCM met the goal of 30 days from referral to evaluation. Prenatal clients had a statistically significant decrease in depression scores, and postpartum client scores were clinically significant. A CCM among care providers facilitates prompt intake to treatment time within 1 month of identification of depression, and a decrease in depression scores in women measured by sequential depression screen scores. The study may provide ideas for evidence-based NP practice by use of the model to treat depression in this group of women.