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Attitudes and Engagement of Pregnant and Postnatal Women With a Web-Based Emotional Health Tool (Mummatters): Cross-sectional Study

BACKGROUND: Mummatters is a web-based health tool that allows women to self-assess the symptoms of depression and the presence of psychosocial risk factors throughout pregnancy and the postnatal period. It aims to increase women’s awareness of their own symptoms or risk factors and their knowledge o...

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Autores principales: Reilly, Nicole, Austin, Marie-Paule
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: JMIR Publications 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8088843/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33769302
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/18517
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author Reilly, Nicole
Austin, Marie-Paule
author_facet Reilly, Nicole
Austin, Marie-Paule
author_sort Reilly, Nicole
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Mummatters is a web-based health tool that allows women to self-assess the symptoms of depression and the presence of psychosocial risk factors throughout pregnancy and the postnatal period. It aims to increase women’s awareness of their own symptoms or risk factors and their knowledge of the available support options, to encourage engagement with these support options (as appropriate), and to facilitate communication about emotional health issues between women and their health care providers. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to report the uptake of mummatters; the sociodemographic and psychosocial risk profiles of a subsample of users; and the acceptability, credibility, perceived effect, and motivational appeal of the tool. The help-seeking behaviors of the subsample of users and barriers to help seeking were also examined. METHODS: Mummatters was launched in November 2016. Women who completed the mummatters baseline assessment were invited to complete a web-based follow-up survey 1 month later. RESULTS: A total of 2817 women downloaded and used mummatters between November 13, 2016, and May 22, 2018, and 140 women participated in the follow-up study. Approximately half of these women (51%; 72/140) were Whooley positive (possible depression), and 43% (60/140) had an elevated psychosocial risk score on the Antenatal Risk Questionnaire. Mummatters was rated favorably by pregnant and postnatal women in terms of its acceptability (94%-99%), credibility (93%-97%), appeal (78%-91%), and potential to affect a range of health behaviors specific to supporting emotional wellness during the perinatal period (78%-93%). Whooley-positive women were more likely to speak with their families than with a health care provider about their emotional health. Normalizing symptoms and stigma were key barriers to seeking help. CONCLUSIONS: Although mummatters was rated positively by consumers, only 53% (19/36) to 61% (22/36) of women with possible depression reported speaking to their health care providers about their emotional health. There was a trend for more prominent barriers to seeking help among postnatal women than among pregnant women. Future studies that investigate whether social barriers to seeking help are greater once a woman has an infant are warranted. Such barriers potentially place these women at greater risk of remaining untreated, as the demands on them are greater.
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spelling pubmed-80888432021-05-07 Attitudes and Engagement of Pregnant and Postnatal Women With a Web-Based Emotional Health Tool (Mummatters): Cross-sectional Study Reilly, Nicole Austin, Marie-Paule J Med Internet Res Original Paper BACKGROUND: Mummatters is a web-based health tool that allows women to self-assess the symptoms of depression and the presence of psychosocial risk factors throughout pregnancy and the postnatal period. It aims to increase women’s awareness of their own symptoms or risk factors and their knowledge of the available support options, to encourage engagement with these support options (as appropriate), and to facilitate communication about emotional health issues between women and their health care providers. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to report the uptake of mummatters; the sociodemographic and psychosocial risk profiles of a subsample of users; and the acceptability, credibility, perceived effect, and motivational appeal of the tool. The help-seeking behaviors of the subsample of users and barriers to help seeking were also examined. METHODS: Mummatters was launched in November 2016. Women who completed the mummatters baseline assessment were invited to complete a web-based follow-up survey 1 month later. RESULTS: A total of 2817 women downloaded and used mummatters between November 13, 2016, and May 22, 2018, and 140 women participated in the follow-up study. Approximately half of these women (51%; 72/140) were Whooley positive (possible depression), and 43% (60/140) had an elevated psychosocial risk score on the Antenatal Risk Questionnaire. Mummatters was rated favorably by pregnant and postnatal women in terms of its acceptability (94%-99%), credibility (93%-97%), appeal (78%-91%), and potential to affect a range of health behaviors specific to supporting emotional wellness during the perinatal period (78%-93%). Whooley-positive women were more likely to speak with their families than with a health care provider about their emotional health. Normalizing symptoms and stigma were key barriers to seeking help. CONCLUSIONS: Although mummatters was rated positively by consumers, only 53% (19/36) to 61% (22/36) of women with possible depression reported speaking to their health care providers about their emotional health. There was a trend for more prominent barriers to seeking help among postnatal women than among pregnant women. Future studies that investigate whether social barriers to seeking help are greater once a woman has an infant are warranted. Such barriers potentially place these women at greater risk of remaining untreated, as the demands on them are greater. JMIR Publications 2021-03-26 /pmc/articles/PMC8088843/ /pubmed/33769302 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/18517 Text en ©Nicole Reilly, Marie-Paule Austin. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 26.03.2021. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Reilly, Nicole
Austin, Marie-Paule
Attitudes and Engagement of Pregnant and Postnatal Women With a Web-Based Emotional Health Tool (Mummatters): Cross-sectional Study
title Attitudes and Engagement of Pregnant and Postnatal Women With a Web-Based Emotional Health Tool (Mummatters): Cross-sectional Study
title_full Attitudes and Engagement of Pregnant and Postnatal Women With a Web-Based Emotional Health Tool (Mummatters): Cross-sectional Study
title_fullStr Attitudes and Engagement of Pregnant and Postnatal Women With a Web-Based Emotional Health Tool (Mummatters): Cross-sectional Study
title_full_unstemmed Attitudes and Engagement of Pregnant and Postnatal Women With a Web-Based Emotional Health Tool (Mummatters): Cross-sectional Study
title_short Attitudes and Engagement of Pregnant and Postnatal Women With a Web-Based Emotional Health Tool (Mummatters): Cross-sectional Study
title_sort attitudes and engagement of pregnant and postnatal women with a web-based emotional health tool (mummatters): cross-sectional study
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8088843/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33769302
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/18517
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