A national approach to perinatal mental health in Australia: exercising caution  in the roll-out of a public  health initiative

Austin, Marie-Paule; Reilly, Nicole; Milgrom, Jeannette; Barnett, Bryanne

doi:10.5694/j.1326-5377.2010.tb03440.x

Topics

To the Editor: A timely article by Yelland and colleagues in the 7 September 2009 issue of the Journal1 correctly identifies postnatal depression as a significant public health issue. However, as members of the consortium that developed the 2008 beyondblue National Action Plan for Perinatal Mental Health (NAP),2 we are concerned that the National Perinatal Depression Initiative is being considered by Yelland and colleagues without reference to the NAP, the document on which the federal government based its funding allocation.

1 Perinatal and Women’s Mental Health, St John of God Health Care, Sydney, NSW.
2 School of Behavioural Science, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC.
3 School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW.

Correspondence: n.reilly@unsw.edu.au

Acknowledgements:

We gratefully acknowledge the other consortium members and writers who led the development of the Perinatal Mental Health NAP: Anne Buist, Jenny Gamble, Nick Kowalenko, Helen Lindner, Jonathan Rampono, Anne Sved-Williams, Barbara Wellesley, Leanne Wells, Wendy Thiele and Kerry Lockhart. We also thank beyondblue for funding the NAP and St John of God Health Care for their role as lead agency.

1. Yelland JS, Sutherland GA, Wiebe JL, et al. A national approach to perinatal mental health in Australia: exercising caution in the roll-out of a public health initiative. Med J Aust 2009; 191: 276-279. <MJA full text>
2. beyondblue: the national depression initiative. National Action Plan for Perinatal Mental Health 2008–2010. http://www.beyondblue.org.au/index.aspx?link_id=4.665&tmp=FileDownload&fid=1057 (accessed Sep 2009).
3. Leigh B, Milgrom J. Acceptability of antenatal screening for depression in routine antenatal care. Aust J Adv Nurs 2007; 24: 14-18.
4. Boyce P, Stubbs J, Todd A. The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale: validation for an Australian sample. Aust N Z J Psychiatry 1993; 27: 472-476.
5. Priest S, Austin MP, Barnett B, Buist A. A psychosocial risk assessment model (PRAM) for use with pregnant and postpartum women in primary care settings. Arch Womens Ment Health 2008; 11: 307-317.

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