Qualitative Research in Practice : Stories From the Field - Blogs Unpad

Epilogue
[it] was dragging me along unfamiliar pathways. This
was because the time was ripe for the sort of study
I ended up doing. Leading maternal and child health
nurses were becoming concerned about post-natal
depression and keen to broaden their role to encompass
maternal emotional and social well-being. The
shift in nursing education from a hospital-based
apprenticeship model to a university-based professional
education some years earlier had helped to
create a new generational cohort of nurse practitioners
who were more psychologically oriented and who
were eager to work in different ways. The study
described and conceptualised the clinical judgement
of exemplary maternal and child health nurses at a
time when the nurses themselves had a strong desire
to broaden their role and enhance the status of their
profession. A paper I published in the Australian
Journal of Advanced Nursing (1987b) was positively
received and I was invited to give addresses at
maternal and child health conferences and in-service
education courses where I was introduced as an
‘honorary maternal and child health nurse’. These
presentations were recorded on audio cassettes and
videos so they could be used to reach nurses in rural
areas. I also published papers in child welfare and
mental health journals to reach other professional
audiences and educate them about the central role
of the maternal and child health nurse. During the
decade following the study there was a marked growth
in professional and public awareness and concern
about post-natal depression and this also increased the
profile of the study. [Mine] was one of the first studies
on maternal depression and most [of those] that
followed were large quantitative studies. Interestingly,
these studies strongly supported the causal significance
of the factors which I had identified the nurses
using in assessing whether a mother was depressed
(infant temperament and sleeping and eating problems;
poor maternal family background; low level of
support from partner and/or her own mother; and a
number of situational stressors such as moving house,
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