PRAMS
Perinatal Redesign for Accessing Mental Health Services
Using experience-based co-design to improve access to perinatal mental
health care for women in underserved groups.
External website
You can view the PRAMS website here:
Background
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.
PRAMS is funded by the NIHR Three Schools Mental Health Programme.
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.
Objectives
Our specific objectives are:
- 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
- To gather experiences of perinatal women from underserved groups via focus groups
- 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.
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.
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 |