Document Type
Psychiatry Issue Brief
Publication Date
2019-09-25
DOI
10.7191/pib.1138
Abstract
Approximately 1 million women in the U.S. have profound hearing loss and use American Sign Language (ASL) as their primary language. Many providers are unfamiliar with the unique linguistic and cultural needs of the Deaf community, therefore Deaf women experience major obstacles to receiving effective physical and mental healthcare. For example, failure to provide ASL interpreters or translations from written English is a common communication barrier that prevents Deaf women from receiving health-related treatment and information. In 2017, Drs. Melissa Anderson, Kelly Wolf Craig, and Nancy Byatt were awarded a 1-year pilot project grant for their Creating the Capacity to Screen Deaf Women for Perinatal Depression project.
The primary goal of this project was to translate the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) from written English to American Sign Language (ASL). Using the new ASL EPDS, the team aimed to recruit 50 Deaf perinatal women from across the United States to conduct depression screening interviews. This brief describes the study, its results and future plans.
Subject Area
Community Based Participatory Research, Depression, Health Disparities, Multicultural
Keywords
perinatal depression, Deaf, Deaf women, Deaf pregnant women, Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), EPDS, ASL, American Sign Language, ASL translation, Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) translation, EPDS ASL translation, EPDS translation, PPD, postpartum depression, Deaf moms
Repository Citation
Anderson ML, Wolf Craig KS, Hostovsky S, Bligh M, Bramande E, Walker K, Biebel K, Byatt N. New Measure to Screen Deaf Women for Perinatal Depression. Psychiatry Information in Brief 16(5):1138. https://doi.org/10.7191/pib.1138. Retrieved from https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/pib/vol16/iss5/1
Rights and Permissions
© 2019 University of Massachusetts
Creative Commons License
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