Cultural Adaptation of Community Informant Tool for Detection of Maternal Depression in Rural Pakistan

Environmental Risk Assessment in Community Care: A Scoping Review

Community care encompasses inherent risks for both clients and healthcare providers. Maintaining a safe environment for the delivery of care services ensures that any risk of unintentional or intentional personal harm is minimised. The aim of this scoping review is to (a) provide an overview of existing knowledge by summarising the current literature and (b) identify gaps pertaining to understanding and managing environmental risk in community care settings. Guided by the Population/Concept/Context approach and PRISMA guidelines, this paper used two questions to answer how a score-based tool for assessing client suitability in community care is developed and how an environmental screening tool assists with reducing risk to community care workers. Literature searches of CINAHL, PubMed (Medline), Web of Science and PsychINFO databases were conducted between September 2023 and November 2023. We included full text articles published from 2018 to 2023. The following four broad areas were identified as key components in the structure of an environmental screening tool: environmental factors, health factors, socioeconomic factors and cultural factors. The results of this review provide valuable information which can be utilised by care organisations to develop and/or refine tools to ensure the safety and wellbeing of workers within the community care sector.

Scalable Screening and Treatment Response Monitoring for Perinatal Depression in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Common perinatal mental disorders such as anxiety and depression are a public health concern in low- and middle-income countries. Several tools exist for screening and monitoring treatment responses, which have frequently been tested globally in clinical and research settings. However, these tools are relatively long and not practical for integration into routine data systems in most settings. This study aims to address this gap by considering three short tools: The Community Informant Detection Tool (CIDT) for the identification of women at risk, the 4-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-4) for screening women at high-risk, and the 4-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD-4) for measuring treatment responses. Studies in rural Pakistan showed that the CIDT offered a valid and reliable key-informant approach for the detection of perinatal depression by utilizing a network of peers and local health workers, yielding a sensitivity of 97.5% and specificity of 82.4%. The PHQ-4 had excellent psychometric properties to screen women with perinatal depression through trained community health workers, with a sensitivity of 93.4% and specificity of 91.70%. The HAMD-4 provided a good model fit and unidimensional construct for assessing intervention responses. These short, reliable, and valid tools are scalable and expected to reduce training, administrative and human resource costs to health systems.