Grant: Knowledge Translation Supplement

This application is to fund a KTE activity of a completed CIHR-funded study entitled Post-Traumatic Stress (PTS) Symptoms Following Childbirth: A Prospective Study to Determine Incidence and Contributing Factors. This study estimated the incidence and severity of acute and chronic PTS symptoms following childbirth and identified factors related to the development and maintenance of PTS following childbirth. Secondary outcomes included examining co-morbidity between anxiety and depression and determined the relationship between these psychosocial factors and birth outcomes. Our findings suggest that anxiety and depressed mood are prevalent during the transition to parenthood and negatively impact birth outcomes and maternal quality of life. These results have led us to the stage of now transferring this knowledge to create a tool entitled OWN: On-line Wellness Program for New Parent to Be. OWN will monitor maternal anxiety, depressed mood and other relevant health behaviours throughout the pregnancy and the first postpartum year. This tool will also provide an integrative and dynamic program to optimize maternal wellness. This low-cost tool will empower women and their partners to be informed and encourage them to be pro-active in their prenatal care. Women will gain more knowledge of their well-being during pregnancy, be at lower risk of becoming anxious or depressed, engage in healthier lifestyles, be in better control of their health outcomes, and cope better with the challenges of parenthood. The impact of the KTE process through OWN has much promise. OWN will be an economical, user-friendly, easily maintained, accessible and far-reaching program to disseminate widely across Canada. We will invite pregnant women and their spouses to participate in the development of OWN and in a usability evaluation. A KT specialist has been enlisted to help us in the dissemination of OWN to women and their health care providers