Abstract
PurposePerinatal mental health (PMH) is acknowledged as a significant public health issue associated with significant personal, family, social and economic burden. Research demonstrates that healthcare practitioners lack knowledge and confidence in this area but there is likely to be a complexity of factors that may influence practitioner behaviours, including negative attitudes towards people with mental health and inaccurate illness perceptions. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Perinatal Illness Perceptions Scale (PIPS), a conceptual derivation of the Illness Perception Questionnaire – Revised.Design/methodology/approachA cross-sectional and exploratory instrument development design, using exploratory factor analysis, was employed.FindingsThe scale demonstrated good psychometric properties revealing three sub-scales: causes, consequences (mother); consequences (baby).Originality/valueThe findings implicate the PIPS as the first robust psychometric measure, which can be used to in the assessment of practitioner knowledge of the causes and consequences of PMH. The PIPS could offer the opportunity to assess these domains within both educational and training context and identify practitioner attitudes which may affect clinical decision making and referral decisions.
Highlights
Perinatal mental health (PMH), is a significant global public health issue (NICE 2014)
Noteworthy prior to discussion of the empirical findings is that the focus on these particular domains was informed by work from a previous study (Jomeen et al, 2014); as per Fleming et al (2009) and Martin et al (2016) application of the Illness Perception Questionnaire (IPQ)-R sub-scales to mental health contexts is seemingly problematic in terms of measurement veracity, in a way which it is not in a physical health context (Arat et al, 2016) which may be fundamental to the underlying dimensional structure as envisaged by Moss-Morris et al (2002)
A further observation is that the content of the Perinatal Illness Perceptions Scale (PIPS)-BABY sub-scale has items, which relate to both baby and infant and highlights continuity in the trajectory of PMH outcomes
Summary
Perinatal mental health (PMH), is a significant global public health issue (NICE 2014) This has established a clear remit for maternity practitioners in the identification and assessment of a range of PMHP problems ((PMHPs): Noonan et al, 2017; Howard et al, 2018). Beyond knowledge and confidence there is a complexity of factors that may influence practitioner behaviours, including negative attitudes toward people with mental health problems (Schafer et al, 2011). This affects understanding of PMHPs and may be linked to a lack of experience and familiarity with mental health issues and perception of an illness. When contextualised, leads to more accurate illness perceptions (Jomeen et al, 2009) but inaccurate illness perceptions may have implications for how knowledge is both interpreted and applied
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
