PRAMS

Background

PRAMS is funded by the NIHR Three Schools Mental Health Programme.

Perinatal mental health (PMH) disorders refer to the ill mental health experienced by women during pregnancy and one year postpartum (the perinatal period). While this is common, in recent research, women from underserved groups, such as those from ethnic minority backgrounds or living in deprived areas, have been shown to experience barriers to accessing mental health care for appropriately meeting their needs. Delays or difficulties in accessing mental health support are problematic when considering the resulting potential for negative impact on women’s health as well as on their children’s development.

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Aims

We are currently unclear as to the reasons behind these inequalities and would like to further understand what these are, as well as how to address these, in acknowledgement of this important issue. We aim to obtain this information by talking to the women who are experiencing mental health problems in pregnancy and early parenthood as well as mental healthcare professionals involved in their support, to better understand the challenges experienced by each group.

Developing on this, the women representing local underserved groups and the mental healthcare and public health professionals involved in delivering quality care to these groups, will come together to co-design an intervention for mental health problems in pregnancy and early childhood. We intend to spread awareness of our findings and of the intervention as a collective.

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Objectives

Our specific objectives are:

1. To gather experiences of staff via surveys and semi-structured interviews about their capacity to deliver services within local systems and the perceived barriers / facilitators
2. To gather experiences of perinatal women from underserved groups via focus groups
3. To run a series of co-design events to develop a bespoke, trauma-informed, and culturally sensitive intervention for underserved women with unmet perinatal mental health needs.

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Timeline

The project began in October 2024 and has a planned duration of 18 months. At this stage, we are currently in the process of submitting the ethics.

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Study Team

Name	Role	Organisation	Contact
Kelly Mackenzie	Chief Investigator Clinical Senior Lecturer/ Consultant in Public Health	The University of Sheffield / Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals NHS FT	kelly.mackenzie@sheffield.ac.uk
Daniel Hind	CTRU Oversight Professor of Evaluation and Assistant Director	CTRU, The University of Sheffield	d.hind@sheffield.ac.uk
Naseeb Ezaydi	Study Manager Research Associate / Project Manager	CTRU, The University of Sheffield	n.ezaydi@sheffield.ac.uk
Jasmine Allender	Study Support Officer	CTRU, The University of Sheffield	j.allender@sheffield.ac.uk
Elena Sheldon	Visiting Research Associate Assistant Psychologist (perinatal mental health)	Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust and CTRU,  The University of Sheffield	e.m.sheldon@sheffield.ac.uk
Danielle Hahn	Research Assistant	CTRU, The University of Sheffield	d.hahn@sheffield.ac.uk
Caroline Mitchell	Professor of General Practice Research	Keele University	c.mitchell@keele.ac.uk
Kelly Hobbs	Principal Clinical Psychologist	Specialist perinatal mental health service, Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust	kelly.hobbs@shsc.nhs.uk
Julia Thompson	Health Improvement Principal	Public Health, Sheffield City Council	julia.thompson@sheffield.gov.uk
Katie-Marvin Dowle	Public Health Improvement Coordinator (Research)	Doncaster Council	Katie.Marvin-Dowle@doncaster.gov.uk
Helen Miles	Chief Executive	Light Peer Support	helen.miles@lightpeersupport.org.uk
Saima Ahmed	Community Engagement Lead	Light Peer Support	saima.ahmed@lightpeersupport.org.uk
Kate Fryer	Research Associate Leads the Inclusive Research Workstream within the Academic Unit for Primary Care, working in collaboration with the Deep End Clinical Research Network.	The University of Sheffield	k.fryer@sheffield.ac.uk
Laura Sutton	Statistician, Lecturer in Epidemiology and Statistics	The University of Sheffield	l.j.sutton@sheffield.ac.uk