Project description
A global approach to preventing maternal perinatal mental disorders
Many new mothers and their partners experience postpartum blues after childbirth. Depression, anxiety and feelings of emotional distress are common and can even lead to suicide. Such disorders affect the whole family. Despite the prevalence of the phenomenon, there is a lack of scientific evidence-based perinatal prevention programmes for depression and anxiety. For this reason, the EU-funded e-Perinatal project aims to carry out the first multidisciplinary research to allow the development of universal prevention programmes for maternal perinatal mental disorders. The proposed approach will be tested for effectiveness and implementation as standard maternal care in cases of perinatal disorders in global health practices.
Objective
Maternal mental disorders are the most common complications during pregnancy and within the first year after childbirth (defined as the perinatal period) and are the leading cause of maternal suicide. Affected mothers cannot function properly, causing a devastating impact on the entire family. Effective primary prevention interventions are urgently needed. However, the current scientific evidence is insufficient to implementing primary preventive programs at the population level.
I aim to establish the effectiveness of universal preventive interventions for maternal perinatal mental disorders and to support their implementation as normalized routine practice in global healthcare services. Integrating classical and emerging methodological frameworks (family systems, self-determination theory, and normalization process theory), as well as the perspective of patient and public involvement in research, I will: (a) Develop a personalized mobile-Health preventive intervention for mothers and their partners, which integrates evidence-based psychological components and personalized health recommendations; (b) Test preventive intervention effectiveness for reducing the incidence of maternal depression and anxiety disorder, reducing father/partner symptoms of depression and anxiety, and promoting child health and development; (c) Apply a causal methodology, to pinpoint the underlying mechanisms for the effectiveness of the preventive intervention; and (d) Understand the implementation process and identify the factors that can promote or inhibit implementation.
With the multidisciplinary team that I lead – and a large-scale hybrid effectiveness-implementation trail in real-world maternal health services – this research programme promises to be the first in its field. The resulting robust scientific evidence and novel explanatory model will create a new research paradigm. A toolkit for implementation research will enhance translation as normalized routine practice.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Topic(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsHost institution
41004 Sevilla
Spain