Mental health articles

The first phase of the study sought to assess the point prevalence of inpatient mothers at Rockland Psychiatric Center. At the time, there were over 400 inpatient beds at the facility, with approximately 35 % of the census comprised of women. I considered seeking the prevalence of mothers by direct inquiry of staff and informally began questioning some of staff on the unit where I held clinical responsibilities.
Remarkably, it was the inconsistency of reports I found most striking.
While some staff had a pretty good idea which women had children, others had no clue. This inconsistency was also not predictable by discipline, making it even more difficult to consider using this approach to get reliable results. Instead, I turned to the electronic medical record for the information I needed. In particular, I looked at the psychosocial assessment, which at this facility is completed on admission and then updated annually. Although not asking specifically about
parenting status, I found this document to be the most likely place in the record for this information to be found. So I got to work. It was easy to identify the female inpatients, and then I set to reviewing the psychosocial assessment of all of these women to determine how many among them were identified as mothers.
I had ideas about what the motherhood prevalence would be. My guess was less than 20 %, given that the cohort of women were hospitalized at a typically longerterm state psychiatric facility where the median length of stay for all female patients was approximately 20 months. Most patients also had been transferred to our facility after community hospitals were unable to stabilize their symptoms. Besides being physically separated from family, the fact that they were hospitalized additionally
had implications on illness impairment and current level of functioning. In
actuality, the point prevalence of inpatient mothers at Rockland Psychiatric Center as of January 1, 2011 was found to be 38.5 %. That is, 50 out of 130 female inpatients were found to be mothers.
The data became even more interesting when looking at the results more closely.
Out of the 130 female inpatients at that time, 49 had mention of children or their motherhood status in the medical record, and only 25 had specific mention that they were not mothers. A striking 43 % of the sample, or 56 women, had no mention of their parenting status either way. I thought carefully about the reasons behind this lack of documentation. Was it an indication that clinicians were not asking or did not consider it important to ask about parenting status? Alternatively, was it related
to the acuity of symptoms having rendered women incapable of fully participating in a psychosocial assessment at that time? Either way, it left a gap in the data set, a hole that needed to be more understood.
For the 56 women who had no mention of motherhood status in their medical record, I went to the patients and treatment teams directly to ascertain the most accurate information possible. While some women had been discharged and were unable to be contacted, and others declined to answer any questions about their motherhood status, in the end only one additional mother among the group was identified.