Design and Evaluation of Mental Health Integration Model in Prenatal Care Programs: A Pilot Study in Kashan University of Medical Sciences

Health care systems are constantly looking for the best functions. Integrated health care systems have effective solutions for enhancing service quality and reducing health system costs. Mental health integration services aim to identify and treat women who are at high risk of mental disorders. This issue is of high importance for reproductive health and mental health professionals .

A community-oriented interventional study was designed to evaluate an integrated model of mental health during gestation. The study was conducted on 206 pregnant women (105 in the intervention group and 101 in the control group) referring to Kashan Health and Treatment Centers. The data were collected using the Golomberg questionnaire, GHQ-28 questionnaire, and interviews with mothers and their first-degree family members about their mental health signs and the history of their emotional health. Mothers in the intervention group received psychological interventions. The data were analyzed using SPSS-22 software by the Pierson correlation coefficient and t-test.

Pregnant mothers were classified into high-risk, at-risk, and low-risk groups based on the data collection tools. The necessary actions were provided for each group of mothers based on the models. After psychological interventions in the intervention group, the complaining subscale of somatization significantly reduced compared to the control group. The health of mothers improved after implementing the reproductive health primary care and only 5% of women needed professional levels of intervention.

The integration of mental health services into primary health care measures during gestation for recognizing mental health disorders of pregnant mothers at the primary level of pregnancy care services can help health care system managers, policymakers, and decision-makers. This method can enhance the health level, reduce the cost of the health care system, and help achieve sustainable development goals.