Austin Health, University of Melbourne, VIC
Mental Health Research Grant 2011 and 2012
Jeannette Milgrom is Professor of Psychology, Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne and Director of the Parent-Infant Research Institute and Psychology at Austin Health, Melbourne, Australia.
She has published in the area of postnatal depression, infant mental health, parent-infant interventions and health psychology. She is recipient of 54 research grants and author/editor of 4 books (one translated into Italian), 13 chapters (one translated into French), has published over 80 scientific articles and numerous other publications. Her work has been recognized internationally, including an invitation to conduct workshops on postnatal depression by the National Institute of Health in Italy in 2003. She has also been active professionally and was Chair of the National College of Health Psychologists (Australian Psychological Society 2004-8) and is a Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society.
Over the past 20 years she has developed extensive psychological services in a medical setting and established a Department that is held in high regard as a model for integrating clinical services, research and teaching in health psychology (including a Doctor of Psychology (Health) course she developed) in her role at the University of Melbourne (1999-2008).
In 2001, she established the Parent-Infant Research Institute as a Centre of Excellence to provide evidence-based parent-infant interventions, training health professionals and delivering public health initiatives.
She has been successful as Principal Investigator on two prestigious National and Health Medical Research grants over the last 5 years, investigating neurobehavioural development in preterm infants: In a landmark publication she demonstrated improvement in infant brain connectivity (visible on MRI scans) following stress-reduction intervention by parents (Milgrom et al., 2010, Ped Res, 67).
She was also a principal researcher in a national research grant (beyondblue 2002-2006) which resulted in Australian Government funding of $85 million for universal screening for Perinatal Depression. She is now Chair the beyondblue National Workforce Training Committee and is involved in training health professionals how to assess and manage perinatal depression. A major thrust of her work is to focus on child outcomes, disseminate findings widely and influence health policy.
SUMMARY OF PROJECT:
Help-seeking for postnatal depression as a major public health problem: A Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial of Motivational Interviewing
Around 30,000 women annually experience PND, and untreated depression has serious negative long-term consequences for mothers and infants. Although there is now a national approach - as part of the Federal Government’s National Perinatal Depression Initiative - to identify women who have symptoms of postnatal depression, the majority of women (50-70%) do not accept help. This has been shown in our own previous research, as well as in the findings of others. Currently, no effective, evidence-based strategy to enhance uptake of postnatal depression treatment exists. There is an urgent need to redress this and determine whether we can improve uptake of treatment by women experiencing PND.
This study aims to examine whether a brief motivational interviewing intervention delivered in the context of a routine postnatal screen improves uptake to treatment when women experience PND. Motivational Interviewing has shown enormous success in other fields of healthcare.
Forty maternal and child health nurses who routinely conduct well-baby checks will receive either motivational interviewing training or continue to provide routine best-practice care (20 of each). Each nurse will recruit 20 women (800 in total) during their routine 4-week postpartum visit. Motivational interviewing will be used at this and subsequent appointments at 8 weeks and 16 weeks postpartum. Data will be collected at three follow-up time points until 12 months postpartum to evaluate the effectiveness of motivational interviewing on mood, services and supports accessed, and barriers to treatment.
By increasing uptake of services in the first postnatal year, this project can potentially have a major public health impact and maximise the Federal Government’s National Perinatal Depression Initiative.
The results of this study will also have implications for improving help-seeking for depression in general (not just postnatal depression), as similar figures showing low help-seeking for depression in general have been reported.