Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Program for Moms: Utilization and Quality Assessment

To describe the utilization and quality assessment of a population-based program to help health care providers address mental health and substance use disorders among pregnant and postpartum women, the Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Program for Moms (MCPAP for Moms).

The Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Program for Moms builds health care providers' capacity to address perinatal mental health and substance use disorders through 1) trainings and toolkits, 2) telephonic access to perinatal psychiatric consultation, and 3) facilitating referral to community resources. Clinical encounter data were collected during telephone consultations. Focus groups were conducted with health care providers and staff from enrolled practices. In-depth interviews were conducted with patients served by the practices that participated in the focus groups. Transcribed interviews were analyzed by two researchers using an iterative, interpretive process with a grounded theory framework.

In the first 3.5 years, MCPAP for Moms enrolled 145 obstetric practices, conducted 145 trainings for 1,174 health care providers, and served 3,699 women. Of telephone consultations provided, 42% were with obstetric care providers-midwives and 16% with psychiatrists. Health care providers perceived that MCPAP for Moms facilitates health care providers detecting and addressing depression and women disclosing symptoms, seeking help, and initiating treatment. Obstetric practices reported that they need additional support to more proactively address and further improve depression care.

The high volume of encounters, sustained utilization over 3.5 years, and qualitative themes identified from health care providers and patients demonstrate that MCPAP for Moms is a feasible, acceptable, and sustainable approach to increasing access to evidence-based treatments for perinatal mental health and substance use disorders on a population-based level.