A multi-perspective exploration of health visitors’ family focused practice with mothers who have mental illness and their families: a mixed methods study protocol

ABSTRACT

Background: Maternal mental illness is a major public health issue and can adversely affect the whole family. Worldwide, about 10% of pregnant women and 13% of women who have just given birth experience a mental illness, primarily depression and anxiety. Increasingly, research and policy are recognising the benefits of a family focused approach to practice. This approach emphasises the family as the unit of attention. Currently, little research is available which has explored Family Focused Practice (FFP) in health visiting.

Objective: This study aims to explore health visitors’ FFP with mothers who have mental illness and their partners.

Methods: A mixed-methods sequential explanatory design consisting of two phases; quantitative followed by qualitative, will be utilised in this study. In the first phase, the Family Focused Mental Health Practice Questionnaire will be used to measure the extent of health visitors’ FFP, and factors that enable and hinder it. The questionnaire will be distributed to practicing health visitors (n = 410). In the second phase, semi-structured interviews will be conducted with health visitors, mothers who have mental illnesses and their partners, to further explore and explain the findings from phase one.

Discussion: While the evidence base for the adoption of a family focused approach is growing, there is little understanding of health visitors’ FFP with mothers who have mental illness and their partners. This study will develop understanding of health visitors’ FFP, from multiple perspectives, that can be used to inform practice, education, research and policy.

KEYWORDS:

• Protocol
• mixed methods
• mental illness
• family focused practice
• health visiting

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Dr Helen Kerr and Dr Karen Galway of Queen’s University Belfast, and Dr Kerstin Soderstrom of Lillehammer University College for their support and advice throughout the design of this research. We are also thankful to all the individuals who took part in the consultations on the study design and study documentation. All three authors contributed to development of ideas and design of the study. RL wrote the first draft of the manuscript, which has been commented on by the other authors. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethical approval

Ethical approval has been granted by West of Scotland Research Ethics Committee 3 (17/WS/0131) and five NHS Research & Development offices (17046AG-SP/NT17-0584-08/ SET.17.20/ST1718-10/WT17-09) due to the recruitment of participants from Belfast, Northern, South Eastern, Southern and Western Health and Social Care Trusts.