CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 23Maternal Mental Health During Pregnancy and PostpartumMaternal and Neonatal HealthcareMaternal and Perinatal Health Interventions

An exploration of illness beliefs in mothers with postnatal depression

Patel, Sonia, Wittkowski, Anja, Fox, John R.E., Wieck, Angelika·2013·Midwifery
DOI 10.1016/j.midw.2012.06.012
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Objective to explore illness beliefs in women with postnatal depression and suggest an appropriate health belief model. About 10% of recently delivered mothers suffer from depression. Postnatal depression may differ from depression occurring at other times in an individual's life not only symptomatically but also experiences, perceptions and beliefs about the illness differ because of the individual's specific role as a carer for a newborn baby. Whilst illness beliefs have been extensively examined using models from physical health, recent studies have pointed out that physical health models may not provide an appropriate framework to explore mental health difficulties and require adapting.Design qualitative study using face-to-face interviews for data collection.Setting Greater Manchester, England.Methods as illness beliefs have not yet been formally assessed using established questionnaires, the present study employed qualitative methodology to explore illness beliefs in mothers with postnatal depression (PND). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 participants who were depressed following the birth of their child. Interview transcripts were analysed using grounded theory methodology. The point of theoretical sufficiency was reached with this sample size.Findings the rich data allowed for a theory of illness beliefs in PND to be developed encompassing six core categories: 'unmet expectations', 'identifying stressors in their life context', 'conflict over label', 'antidepressants: the lesser of two evils', 'loss of time' and 'uncertain futures.'Key conclusions and implications for practice participants made multiple appraisals of their PND in light of their initial difficulties, their improvements and consequences, the future and subsequent service involvement. Participants' narratives were conflicting and uncertain with internal struggles evident as mothers were torn between their desire to be good mothers and their perceptions that PND meant that they were not good enough mothers. Thus, the themes identified in this study did not match onto the key dimensions postulated by Leventhal's self-regulation model of illness beliefs.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.midw.2012.06.012

Cites

51 of 51 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Several qualitative studies have cast doubt on the application of the CSM to mental health conditions; for example, a study on postnatal depression concluded that understandings of the condition were too complex to fit within neat dimensions of understanding.

    “On the other hand, several qualitative studies have cast doubt on the application of the CSM to mental health conditions, for example, in the case of a study on postnatal depression, the authors concluded that understandings of the condition were too complex to fit within ‘neat’ dimensions of understanding [7].”

    From Testing the psychometric properties of the illness perceptions questionnaire for OCD (IPQ-O) (2019) · cites this paper as [7]

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

1 of the 52 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Patel, S., Wittkowski, A., Fox, J. R. E., & Wieck, A.
Affiliations
University of Manchester (GB)
ORCID
Venue
Midwifery
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2013-06
Volume
29
Issue
6
Pages
682-689
ISSN
0266-6138 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.midw.2012.06.012
OpenAlex
W2097343993
Cited by
23
References
52
Citations by year
2024: 1 · 2023: 2 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 3 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 2 · 2013: 1
FWCI
1.54
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
Locations
  • Midwifery (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Research Explorer (The University of Manchester) (submittedVersion)
Funders
Johns Hopkins University
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Maternal Mental Health During Pregnancy and Postpartum
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Maternal and Neonatal Healthcare
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Obstetrics and Gynecology › Maternal and Perinatal Health Interventions
Keywords
postpartum depression, illness beliefs, mothers, Health Belief Model, self-regulation model, maternal identity, antidepressants, unmet expectations, stressors, good motherhood, mental health
MeSH terms
Activities of Daily Living, Adaptation, Psychological, Adult, Antidepressive Agents, Attitude to Health, England, Female, Humans, Infant, Newborn, Interview, Psychological, Maternal Behavior, Mother-Child Relations, Psychiatric Status Rating Scales, Sick Role, Social Support, Depression, Postpartum, Qualitative Research, Postpartum Period

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review