A virtual course in perinatal mental health for healthcare professionals

• Published in: Asian journal of psychiatry Vol. 62; p. 102746
• Main Authors: Shiva, Lakshmi, Desai, Geetha, Chand, Prabhat, Ganjekar, Sundarnag, Vaiphei, Kimneihat, Satyanarayana, Veena A., Kishore, M. Thomas, Thippeswamy, Harish, Chandra, Prabha S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01-08-2021
• Subjects: India; Perinatal mental health; Pregnancy and postpartum; Virtual course; Perinatal mental health; Pregnancy and postpartum; Virtual course; India
• ISSN: 1876-2018; 1876-2026
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ajp.2021.102746

•Training health professionals in perinatal mental health is necessary to address the mental health in perinatal period.•Virtual course in perinatal mental health designed to train in identification and management of mental health disorders in the perinatal period.•Feedback received was encouraging and indicated that course appeared to be feasible and scalable.
Screening and treatment of perinatal mental health problems remain inadequate with one of the barrier being non-availability of trained health professionals. Virtual courses have been an important medium to enhance the knowledge and capacity of health professionals. A virtual certificate course in perinatal mental health was developed to train health professionals to identify and treat perinatal mental health disorders. Of the 41 participants, 90.2 % fulfilled the attendance criterion and 75.6 % of them secured the certification. Encouraging feedback (9.54/10) indicated that virtual courses could help enhance competency in health professionals to identify and treat perinatal mental health disorders.