Introduction: Motherhood is a challenging task per se. For woman with mental health disorders suddenly their job isn't just managing their symptoms but searching for constant balance between her own and her child's needs. Occupational therapists can provide opportunities for those mothers to develop their maternal instincts and create safe physical and emotionally stable environment, ensuring optimal child development. Purpose: To examine occupational therapists' experiences and role within their interventions for mothers with mental health disorders. Methods: Firstly, we reviewed literature to form a theoretical overview and to determine key words. Then we conducted qualitative research, using semi-structured interview as a research method. We used snowball sampling which later on provided five Slovenian occupational therapists, who had at least one year of experience with treatment of mothers with mental health issues and have to this day treated at least one mother with mental health issues, diagonosed prenatally. Then followed thematic analysis and extraction with coding of data, which we then combined into hierarchic order. At last, we compared data with theoretical literature. Results: Occupational therapy interventions were mostly individual, in mothers' home environments. In most cases multidisciplinary approach was used. Most used assessment tools were COPM, activity analysis and interviews for conducting occupational profile. Largest sources of knowledge for occupational therapists experiences from their co-workers and also experiences from their own motherhood. Their interventions were rarely based on process method or konceptual models. Discussion and conclusion: Most interventions were carried out to establish daily routines, including various activities of daily life and social participation as well as increasing mothers' autonomy in those activities. Occupational therapists stressed the importance of holistic approach and empowering women for engaging in maternal occupations. As a challenge, occupational therapists indicated position of their role in multidisciplinary team and a necessity to gain more knowledge in relation to mental health. For future practice we strongly suggest establishing consistent occupational therapy guidelines for supporting mothers with mental health disorders and to bring more attention to maternal occupations.
|
