April 4-6, 2024 • Hyatt Regency • Lexington, KY
Innovations in Health Communication
Innovations in Health Communication
Abstract: Co-Owners and Deliberate Confidants: Postpartum Depression Privacy Management by Black Caribbean and African American Women
Background: Worldwide, almost 23% of expectant and recent mothers experience a mental disorder (WHO, 2023). One disorder, postpartum depression (PPD), is especially concerning given the potentially fatal consequences (Johnson et al., 2020). PPD is a non-psychotic major depressive disorder that manifests in the first four weeks after childbirth (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). In the United States, Black women are two times more likely to experience PPD than White women (Bauman et al., 2020). Considering the characteristic silencing of communication about mental health challenges in the Black community, more attention is needed on this group and the sub-cultures within it to determine how they navigate the PPD experience. Therefore, using communication privacy management (CPM) theory, we investigated the strategies Black Caribbean and African American women suggested as effective for getting and providing PPD support. CPM is appropriate because it sensitizes us to how people handle private information and process conflicting desires for privacy or openness, especially regarding stigmatized topics.
Methods: After IRB approval, from January to March 2023, 15 participants were recruited and interviewed. The women were either self-diagnosed or clinically diagnosed with PPD. Two interviews were conducted in Haitian Creole, while the rest were in English. The interviews yielded 294 single-spaced transcribed pages.
Analysis: We employed thematic data analysis to address the main research question. While reading the transcriptions, we drew from the theoretical framework to identify initial deductive and inductive themes. We focused on suggestions from participants to future PPD patients on how they could disclose their symptoms. Also, we analyzed tips the participants offered to social support members on how they could encourage loved ones to disclose PPD signs to receive help.
Results: Analyses revealed two main themes of suggestions for managing disclosure about PPD. First, participants recommend that PPD patients co-opt capable co-owners of disclosed information about their mental health struggles, such as family members, intimate partners, mental health counselors, and women who have experienced PPD. Suggested tips for disclosure management include creating co-owners through confessionals about their difficulties and subsequent needs. Second, while co-owners can be created after hearing a confessional from women with PPD, co-owners can also achieve that position by assertively situating themselves as deliberate confidants. Deliberate confidants seek out private and often taboo information about their loved one’s mental health status through sensitive but direct and repeated questioning. A major tip from participants was that co-owners and deliberate confidants must be more than recipients of private information about challenges with PPD. To go beyond that level, participants recommended that co-owners and confidants also provide psychological and instrumental support, know the symptoms of PPD, and understand the Black cultural framework of mental health.
Conclusion: This study provides unique insights into the PPD experience through the eyes of Black Caribbean and African American women. In recognizing the harm that could be created by suppressed communication about mental health, the participants were open advocates of normalizing education and discussion about PPD. Ultimately, this study has broader implications for research about communication about women and mental health.
Methods: After IRB approval, from January to March 2023, 15 participants were recruited and interviewed. The women were either self-diagnosed or clinically diagnosed with PPD. Two interviews were conducted in Haitian Creole, while the rest were in English. The interviews yielded 294 single-spaced transcribed pages.
Analysis: We employed thematic data analysis to address the main research question. While reading the transcriptions, we drew from the theoretical framework to identify initial deductive and inductive themes. We focused on suggestions from participants to future PPD patients on how they could disclose their symptoms. Also, we analyzed tips the participants offered to social support members on how they could encourage loved ones to disclose PPD signs to receive help.
Results: Analyses revealed two main themes of suggestions for managing disclosure about PPD. First, participants recommend that PPD patients co-opt capable co-owners of disclosed information about their mental health struggles, such as family members, intimate partners, mental health counselors, and women who have experienced PPD. Suggested tips for disclosure management include creating co-owners through confessionals about their difficulties and subsequent needs. Second, while co-owners can be created after hearing a confessional from women with PPD, co-owners can also achieve that position by assertively situating themselves as deliberate confidants. Deliberate confidants seek out private and often taboo information about their loved one’s mental health status through sensitive but direct and repeated questioning. A major tip from participants was that co-owners and deliberate confidants must be more than recipients of private information about challenges with PPD. To go beyond that level, participants recommended that co-owners and confidants also provide psychological and instrumental support, know the symptoms of PPD, and understand the Black cultural framework of mental health.
Conclusion: This study provides unique insights into the PPD experience through the eyes of Black Caribbean and African American women. In recognizing the harm that could be created by suppressed communication about mental health, the participants were open advocates of normalizing education and discussion about PPD. Ultimately, this study has broader implications for research about communication about women and mental health.