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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
June Shibuya, MSN, NP, Department of Health, State of Hawaii, P. O. Box 203, Hilo, HI 96760 and Dyanne D. Affonso, PhD, Faculty of Nursing, University of Toronto, 50 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 3H4, Canada, (416) 978-2862, shibuy@hgea.org.
A community-based prenatal care program was designed and implemented by public health nurses to deliver culturally competent care specific to defusing depressive symptoms and promoting adaptation among three diverse groups of women (Filipinas, Japanese and Hawaiians). The program attempted to infuse "public constituents" into public health nursing practice by using five community interventions. These included organizing neighborhood women for social supports, partnering with cultural healers to access ethnic healing practices, convening women in group work for prenatal-postpartum health education, story-telling-cultural styles of communications to assess symptom distress related to depressive and stress reactions, and conducting community forums to educate the general public of threats to the mental health of local childbearing women. The multi-cultural community site was on the island of Hawaii, where prior risks assessments indicated undesirable birth outcomes and increased reports by women of depressive experiences, compared to other islands. Public health nursing actions were organized around a conceptual framework to promote maternal adaptation by reducing depressive symptom distress. Beck Depression Inventory and Edinburg Postnatal Depression Scale were used to assess depression and the Cognitive Adaptation to Stressful Events questionnaire measured maternal adaptation. Program evaluations demonstrated that a public health approach for assessing depression had merit through a nursing model of care that targeted maternal adaptation as desired outcomes.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Community Education, Depression
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.