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Feasibility, Acceptability and Usage Patterns of a 24-Hour Mobile Phone Helpline Service for Women Discharged from a Mother-Baby Psychiatry Unit (MBU) in India

BACKGROUND: For women with perinatal mental illness, phone helplines may be a useful way of accessing help. This study assessed the feasibility, acceptability, limitations, and usage patterns of a helpline service for mothers discharged from a mother-baby psychiatry unit. METHODS: Mothers discharged...

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Autores principales: Ragesh, G, Ganjekar, Sundarnag, Thippeswamy, Harish, Desai, Geetha, Hamza, Ameer, Chandra, Prabha S
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7735230/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33354078
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0253717620954148
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author Ragesh, G
Ganjekar, Sundarnag
Thippeswamy, Harish
Desai, Geetha
Hamza, Ameer
Chandra, Prabha S
author_facet Ragesh, G
Ganjekar, Sundarnag
Thippeswamy, Harish
Desai, Geetha
Hamza, Ameer
Chandra, Prabha S
author_sort Ragesh, G
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: For women with perinatal mental illness, phone helplines may be a useful way of accessing help. This study assessed the feasibility, acceptability, limitations, and usage patterns of a helpline service for mothers discharged from a mother-baby psychiatry unit. METHODS: Mothers discharged from a mother baby unit during an 18-month period were provided with a helpline number. A social worker answered the calls. Details of the calls, including the reasons and the interventions provided, were recorded. Feasibility and acceptability were assessed by calling all users and nonusers. Satisfaction with the helpline was recorded among users, and reasons for not calling were assessed among nonusers. RESULTS: Among 113 mothers, 51 (45%) made 248 calls. Calls were regarding medication, sleep problems, planning pregnancies, symptom exacerbation, appointments, and suicidal ideation. Some calls were related to domestic violence (n = 13, 5.24%), and infant health and breastfeeding (n = 11, 4.44%). Seventy-six (67%, 44 callers and 32 noncallers) were contacted. The majority (41/44) of the callers found it useful: 91% said they got help, and 95% said they would recommend it to others. However, language difficulties (9%) and technical problems (5%) were reported. Among the noncallers, the majority reported having experienced no problem related to mental health or had contacted a doctor. However, of the noncallers, one woman died of suicide, did not have access to a phone, and the family did not choose to call. CONCLUSIONS: Helpline phone service appears to be feasible and acceptable and can be adapted in other mother-baby psychiatry units in low and middle-income countries. However, in some women, the nonavailability of a phone may be a limiting factor.
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spelling pubmed-77352302020-12-21 Feasibility, Acceptability and Usage Patterns of a 24-Hour Mobile Phone Helpline Service for Women Discharged from a Mother-Baby Psychiatry Unit (MBU) in India Ragesh, G Ganjekar, Sundarnag Thippeswamy, Harish Desai, Geetha Hamza, Ameer Chandra, Prabha S Indian J Psychol Med Original Articles BACKGROUND: For women with perinatal mental illness, phone helplines may be a useful way of accessing help. This study assessed the feasibility, acceptability, limitations, and usage patterns of a helpline service for mothers discharged from a mother-baby psychiatry unit. METHODS: Mothers discharged from a mother baby unit during an 18-month period were provided with a helpline number. A social worker answered the calls. Details of the calls, including the reasons and the interventions provided, were recorded. Feasibility and acceptability were assessed by calling all users and nonusers. Satisfaction with the helpline was recorded among users, and reasons for not calling were assessed among nonusers. RESULTS: Among 113 mothers, 51 (45%) made 248 calls. Calls were regarding medication, sleep problems, planning pregnancies, symptom exacerbation, appointments, and suicidal ideation. Some calls were related to domestic violence (n = 13, 5.24%), and infant health and breastfeeding (n = 11, 4.44%). Seventy-six (67%, 44 callers and 32 noncallers) were contacted. The majority (41/44) of the callers found it useful: 91% said they got help, and 95% said they would recommend it to others. However, language difficulties (9%) and technical problems (5%) were reported. Among the noncallers, the majority reported having experienced no problem related to mental health or had contacted a doctor. However, of the noncallers, one woman died of suicide, did not have access to a phone, and the family did not choose to call. CONCLUSIONS: Helpline phone service appears to be feasible and acceptable and can be adapted in other mother-baby psychiatry units in low and middle-income countries. However, in some women, the nonavailability of a phone may be a limiting factor. SAGE Publications 2020-10-22 /pmc/articles/PMC7735230/ /pubmed/33354078 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0253717620954148 Text en © 2020 Indian Psychiatric Society - South Zonal Branch https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
spellingShingle Original Articles
Ragesh, G
Ganjekar, Sundarnag
Thippeswamy, Harish
Desai, Geetha
Hamza, Ameer
Chandra, Prabha S
Feasibility, Acceptability and Usage Patterns of a 24-Hour Mobile Phone Helpline Service for Women Discharged from a Mother-Baby Psychiatry Unit (MBU) in India
title Feasibility, Acceptability and Usage Patterns of a 24-Hour Mobile Phone Helpline Service for Women Discharged from a Mother-Baby Psychiatry Unit (MBU) in India
title_full Feasibility, Acceptability and Usage Patterns of a 24-Hour Mobile Phone Helpline Service for Women Discharged from a Mother-Baby Psychiatry Unit (MBU) in India
title_fullStr Feasibility, Acceptability and Usage Patterns of a 24-Hour Mobile Phone Helpline Service for Women Discharged from a Mother-Baby Psychiatry Unit (MBU) in India
title_full_unstemmed Feasibility, Acceptability and Usage Patterns of a 24-Hour Mobile Phone Helpline Service for Women Discharged from a Mother-Baby Psychiatry Unit (MBU) in India
title_short Feasibility, Acceptability and Usage Patterns of a 24-Hour Mobile Phone Helpline Service for Women Discharged from a Mother-Baby Psychiatry Unit (MBU) in India
title_sort feasibility, acceptability and usage patterns of a 24-hour mobile phone helpline service for women discharged from a mother-baby psychiatry unit (mbu) in india
topic Original Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7735230/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33354078
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0253717620954148
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