Enhancing timely access to acute psychiatric care@home for women after birth | Nursing Science Foundation Switzerland

Context

Perinatal mental health disorders occur during pregnancy or in the first year after birth and affect around 13,000 women in Switzerland every year. The consequences are serious: untreated disorders have a lasting impact on the parent-child bond; in severe cases, inpatient psychiatric treatment is required, which usually means separation from the mother and child. Suicide is also the most common cause of death among women in the first year after giving birth.

Despite the high prevalence, there are significant gaps in care in Switzerland. Specialised outpatient services are rare and care is highly fragmented. Obstetricians and psychiatrists often work without structured exchange. This lack of integration makes it difficult to provide needs-based, continuous and interprofessional treatment.

Approach

The SCDH is supporting the Bern University of Applied Sciences in the participatory development of a care@home care model using service design and co-design methods. In several workshops, key needs, model components, role allocations and care pathways are being developed together with affected women, relatives and specialists from various disciplines.

This is based on qualitative interviews with those affected, relatives and specialists, as well as a systematic literature review on nursing interventions. The identified needs are structured and visualised using service design tools such as personas, stakeholder maps and user journeys. In iterative workshop cycles, a model sketch for the care model and a prototype of a digital application to support specialists, affected women and relatives are created. In addition, a programme theory is developed that describes the mechanisms of action and relevant outcomes. 

The aim is to implement the model in the Bern region and to test it in a feasibility study. The findings will form the basis for a later evaluation and enable transfer to other regions.

Objectives

• The participatory development process will result in a needs-based and broadly supported care model that is consistently oriented towards real needs and work processes.
• The model strengthens interprofessional collaboration between obstetric and psychiatric disciplines and establishes nursing professionals and midwives – including those in advanced practice roles – as key players in care provision.
• The digital application supports competence building, improves communication between all parties involved and strengthens the autonomy of affected women and their relatives.
• In the long term, the project aims to make a substantial contribution to closing a key gap in care provision.

By December 2025, a research proposal had been developed that outlined an initial new care model based on the description of best practice models from abroad. The application was then submitted to the Nursing Science Foundation Switzerland.

• Bern University of Applied Sciences / School of Health Professions / Projects  /Enhancing Timely Access to acute Psychiatric care@home for Women after birt