Capstone Paper: Perinatal Mental Health Educational Content Module for OT Mental Health Class

Abstract

1in 5 women and 1 in 10 men experience a perinatal mental depression and or anxiety(PSI,2025). Occupational therapists can use their unique skills and holistic approach to help someone who is struggling with a perinatal mental health condition but there is a need for more education and skill practice in this population. Through a needs assessment it was found that the site had a need for incorporating perinatal mental health education into the OT Practice: Mental Health SHHS T543T class. The purpose of this capstone was to develop evidenced based resources to address perinatal mental health including the unique needs of adolescents to incorporate into the Indiana University Indianapolis (IUI) Entry- Level Occupational Therapy Doctoral (OTD) curriculum. The project goal was to provide education and skill practice for students so that the staff will be able to incorporate perinatal mental health education into OT Practice: Mental Health SHHS T543 lab portion of the class. The faculty who teaches the mental health course received all the content through a one drive shared folder and after reviewing all the content they were asked to take a post survey to assess the quality of the information developed for the educational content module. The results indicated that the educational content module was adequate for use and rooted in evidenced based practices.