School of Nursing and Midwifery, Medical Biology Centre, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2024 Aug 15;19(8):e0306890. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0306890. eCollection 2024.
Despite benefits of family focused practice, little is known about health visitor's practice with families when mothers are mentally unwell. Health visitors are midwives and nurses with additional training in community public health.
To explore multiple perspectives of health visitor's family focused practice with families when mothers have mental illness in Northern Ireland.
Ten health visitors, 11 mothers with mental illness and seven partners completed in-depth interviews in Five Health and Social Care Trusts. Participants were asked to describe their experiences of providing or receiving family focused practice within health visiting and data was analysed using thematic analysis.
Health visitors primarily addressed mothers and children's needs rather than also supporting partners. Additionally, they only addressed mother's needs associated with less severe mental illness (i.e. postnatal depression). Health visitors and mothers converged on many issues, including the influence of the health visitor's personal and professional experiences on their practice, central role of the relationship between health visitors and mothers and importance of health visitors supporting partner's well-being. While partners did not perceive that health visitors should support their well-being they expressed a need for further information and knowledge in order to support mothers.
Health visitor's practice largely centres around mother and baby. For health visitors to increase their family focused practice they need to meet needs of mothers who have serious mental illness more effectively and consider how partners can be included in their practice, in a manner that is beneficial and acceptable to them. This study contributes to better understanding of health visitor's family focused practice with mentally ill mothers and highlights the need for more effective engagement with mothers with serious mental illness and partners. It also highlights that for health visitors to engage in family focused practice they need the necessary training and time to do so. Results can inform organisational developments in family focused practice within health visiting.
尽管以家庭为中心的实践有很多好处，但对于当母亲精神健康状况不佳时，健康访视员与家庭的实践情况却知之甚少。健康访视员是接受过额外社区公共卫生培训的助产士和护士。
探索北爱尔兰当母亲患有精神疾病时，健康访视员以家庭为中心的实践与家庭的多种观点。
在五个健康和社会保健信托中，十名健康访视员、十一名患有精神疾病的母亲和七名伴侣完成了深入访谈。要求参与者描述他们在健康访视中提供或接受以家庭为中心的实践的经验，使用主题分析对数据进行分析。
健康访视员主要解决母亲和儿童的需求，而不是支持伴侣。此外，他们只解决与较轻精神疾病（即产后抑郁症）相关的母亲需求。健康访视员和母亲在许多问题上达成了共识，包括健康访视员的个人和专业经验对其实践的影响、健康访视员与母亲关系的核心作用以及健康访视员支持伴侣幸福感的重要性。虽然伴侣不认为健康访视员应该支持他们的幸福感，但他们表示需要进一步的信息和知识，以便能够支持母亲。
健康访视员的实践主要集中在母亲和婴儿身上。为了增加以家庭为中心的实践，健康访视员需要更有效地满足患有严重精神疾病的母亲的需求，并考虑如何让伴侣以对他们有益和可接受的方式参与他们的实践。本研究有助于更好地理解健康访视员对患有精神疾病的母亲的以家庭为中心的实践，并强调需要更有效地与患有严重精神疾病的母亲和伴侣接触。它还强调，健康访视员要进行以家庭为中心的实践，就需要接受必要的培训和时间。研究结果可为健康访视中以家庭为中心的实践提供组织发展的信息。
