Adaptation and Assessment of a Family Intervention Designed to Improve Maternal and Child Mental Health in a Resource-limited Setting

Participants will be recruited from the prenatal clinics at INMP and San Bartolomé. Due to COVID-19, the prenatal clinics are currently conducting only telehealth visits. The interviews will be conducted using structured questionnaires that cover questions about socio-demographic characteristics, lifestyle characteristics, symptoms of depression or PTSD, history of trauma, and medical, obstetric and psychiatric history. Participants will be able to enter their responses online, with a research team member available to answer questions by phone, or they can give their answers by phone while a team member enters them. See attached Initial Questionnaire for details.

After the interview, each participant will be asked to provide the name of someone whom she anticipates will be helping her to care for the child. We expect that in most cases this will be a female relative of the participant, typically her mother or grandmother, but it may also be a friend or the baby's father. The participant will be given information about the study to provide to the other caregiver, and the interviewer will contact the other caregiver within a week of enrolling the participant and arrange for a convenient time for the caregiver to learn about the study and go through the informed consent procedures. If more than one person is providing significant support to the mother, she may identify up to two other caregivers. She can also identify a second caregiver at a later point.

Each participating family will be randomized to either the intervention arm or the usual care arm. Usual care consists of routine prenatal care and pediatric follow up at 2 weeks, 2 months, 4 months and 6 months. If enrolled prior to 20 weeks gestation, participants in both groups will receive a short phone call to check in every 4 weeks, until they reach 24 weeks gestation, to minimize the gap before the first visit at 28 weeks.

After delivery, obstetric records will be reviewed for information about gestational age, birth weight, and any complications. See attached Birth Data form for planned data collection.

Due to COVID-19, the intervention will begin with virtual visits conducting via videoconferencing. If, during the study period, it becomes safe to do home visits, we may switch to in-person home visits, or we may conduct the entire study with virtual visits. The intervention consists of 2 prenatal and 8 postpartum visits, with visit frequency gradually decreasing as mothers gain experience and confidence. Visits will last for up to 90 minutes to allow time for multiple caregivers to participate. Other caregivers will be encouraged to participate for the first 10 minutes and the last 20 minutes of the intervention sessions. As much as possible, visits will accommodate the family schedule, occurring at a time when all or most of the caregivers are at home. The perspectives of all caregivers will be elicited by the home visitor in order to facilitate a conversation among them about their preferences, concerns, and goals.