Perinatal mental health management level of obstetric healthcare workers and influencing factors: a latent profile analysis

Obstetric healthcare workers (OHWs) play an important role in managing perinatal mental health (PMH) problems of perinatal women. This study aims to examine the characteristics of different obstetric healthcare workers subgroups in terms of PMH management level and identify its influencing factors to enhance the prevention and treatment efforts of OHWs. From March to May 2021, a total of 1010 OHWs with professional qualification certificates (obstetricians, obstetric nurses, and midwives) from 34 hospitals participated in this cross-sectional study. The response rate was 93.35%. Latent characteristics and their influencing factors were analyzed using latent profile analysis and multivariable logistic regression with SPSS 26.0 and Mplus 8.3. The level of PMH management of obstetric health care workers in this study could be divided into a Low PMHQ group and a High PMHQ group with a two-profile model. The level of PMH management in the Low PMHQ group (81.78%) was relatively low and accounted for a large proportion. The high PMHQ group (18.22%) had a high level of PMH management. There were significant differences in the scores of PMH management between the two groups, especially in the three dimensions of the Perinatal Illness Perception Scale. Perinatal mental health training is an essential factor affecting the PMH management level of obstetric healthcare workers (OR = 0.662, P=0.019). Most obstetric healthcare workers had a relatively low level of PMH management, especially since their knowledge of perinatal mental illness was weak. Medical authorities must focus on strengthening the training of obstetric healthcare workers and improving the management level of obstetric healthcare workers.