Depression in Women in Australia

Running head: DEPRESSION IN WOMEN IN AUSTRALIA
DEPRESSION IN WOMEN IN AUSTRALIA
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DEPRESSION IN WOMEN IN AUSTRALIA
Introduction:
Depression can be defined as the common but a serious medical illness which s seen to
negatively affect the ways by which an individual feels, the ways they think and the ways they
act. This mental health disorder is seen to develop feelings of sadness as well as the loss of
interest in activities that the individuals enjoyed beforehand (Martinson & Tienda, 2016). It can
lead to different types of emotional as well as physical problems that can in turn decrease the
ability of a person to function effectively at both work and home. However, present day
researchers have put forward interesting information about the prevalence of depression in the
nation of Australia stating that gender plays a significant role in the prevalence of depression
(Woolhouse et al., 2015). The following assignment will mainly focus on the above-mentioned
facts and will help to develop a health promotion program that will help to tackle the mental
health disorder of depression effectively.
Prevalence of depression in a gender based manner:
Australia is seen to be the second nation in the world who has the highest number of
depressed citizens just after the nation of Ukraine where 6.3% of the population is seen to be
affected with Australia giving a rate of 5.9% people being affected. Statistical data shows that
about 1 in 7 Australians are seen to experience depression in their lifetime (Cuijpers et al., 2015).
However, an interesting fact that has been noticed here is that the number of women affected by
depression in the nation is twice as higher than the number of men affected by depression. The
researchers have identified several factors as the main cause of such gender based differences in
the occurrence of depression. Some of the mood changes as well as depressed feelings are seen
to occur natural with hormonal alterations. However, changes in hormones cannot alone cause

DEPRESSION IN WOMEN IN AUSTRALIA
depression there are many other biological factors, different inherited traits as well as personal
life circumstances and other experiences may result in development of depression in women.
One of the most important cohorts of women who are largely exposed to risks of depression are
those who are pregnant and those who are in the first year of the post partum stage (Woolhoise et
al., 2014). Researchers have found out that women who are in the months of the pregnancy and
those who are in the year following pregnancy are exposed to development of depressive
symptoms ranging from 1 in 10 women in the first category and 1 in 7 women in the second
category respectively. The depression that occurs in women in the times of pregnancy is called
antenatal depression. Some of the symptoms that can be used to identify the symptoms are the
panic attacks, persistent and generalised worry that often focus on the fears for the development
and well being of child, compulsive behaviours, abrupt mood swings, feeling constantly sad, low
or crying for any reason, being nervous and many others (Najman et al., 2017). When depression
occurs after the birth of the baby for about in the first years, it is called postnatal depression. This
is one of the most harmful phases of the mothers as often leads to suicidal activities. This is
because this phase is often frightening and isolating experience of the mothers, as they have to
deal with the symptoms at the same time as needing to care for the new baby. Therefore, in order
to provide a good quality life of the mothers and help them to fight the symptoms effectively, it
becomes very important to develop health promotion campaigns that would enable healthy and
better quality life of mothers (Staneva et al., 2015).
Males and females are taught different norms after their birth and as a result of this, roles
and relationship of the make and females also become different when they become adults. Their
positions in the household affairs also tend to matter with specific activities aligned to women
and men separately. In order to avoid stigma social exclusion and discriminatory practices,

DEPRESSION IN WOMEN IN AUSTRALIA
women try to maintain their own roles that are assigned by the society. While mothers are
expected to care for their children, they are also held to be responsible about the health and well-
being of the child (Macmahon et al., 2015). Such responsibilities often create burden on the
mothers that make them depressed. Such human right issues need to be cared for by the
government so that the burden of responsibility gets equally shared by the community centres,
mothers and family members.
Model to be followed:
The socio-ecological model of healthcare can be applied in order to develop a health
promotion campaign for antenatal depression as well as post-partum depression. There are five
important stages of this model of health promotion campaign which id followed proactively will
help in developing high quality health of mothers. The first step is called the intrapersonal as
well as individual factor consideration of the target population that is seen to influence the
behaviour such an attitudes, beliefs, personality and knowledge (Hammen, 2017). The second
stage is called the interpersonal factor consideration that include the interactions of the other
people who can provide social support and help to overcome barriers that prevent healthy
behaviour and interpersonal growth. The third stage is the institutional as well as the
organisational factors where rules, regulations, policies as well as informal structures would be
analysed that constrain or promote healthy behaviours. The fourth stage is the community factors
that involve consideration of the formal and informal social norms that exist among the
individuals or groups that limit or enhance behaviours (Hammen, 2017). The last one is the
public policy factors that include local, state, and federal policies and laws which help in
regulation or support of health actions and practices of diseases prevention.

DEPRESSION IN WOMEN IN AUSTRALIA
Development of health promotion:
The program would be named as “Nurture the mother”. This program would first initiate a
strategy by which every community healthcare centre should have screening sessions once in
every month for all the mothers who are visiting the gynaecological unit both during pregnancy
as well as after delivery. Many of the mothers are often seen to fail to identify that they are
suffering from depression. Therefore, these screening sessions would be the first step to identify
depressed mothers (Woolhouse et al., 2016).
The second initiative would be arrangement of workshop sessions and seminars for would be
mother and new mothers in the community auditorium once a month. Stalwart gynaecologist
would conduct the seminars who would be discussing the ways by which mothers can recognise
depressive symptoms. They would be also stating the various ill effects that depression may have
on their unborn child or the newborn and the ways they could handle this depression (Venter et
al., 2016). All such information would be helpful for the mothers to develop knowledge on the
concept of maternal depression and when they understand that such issues have negative impacts
on the health of their babies, they would be extra careful both about themselves and also on the
babies.
The third initiative would be development of a pamphlet that would be distributed to every
household containing new mothers by the community centre. This pamphlet would be extremely
helpful for developing healthcare literacy of the mothers. The pamphlets would be containing the
signs of depression in details and therefore, the mothers can use it as a checklist to identify
whether they are also affected by depression or not (Bruggman et al., 2017). Moreover, the
pamphlets would be containing the different services that they can attend to where they would

DEPRESSION IN WOMEN IN AUSTRALIA
get asocial help, expert help or counsellor help to help them overcome the situations. The
pamphlets would be written in simple language so that mothers can read it and understand the
content successfully.
The fourth initiative would be development of social media group “nurture the mother” where
the would-be mothers and the new mothers can become active members. In the present
generation of the digital communication, such social group would be extremely helpful where
mothers can share their concerns, ask for guidance, and talk about things of interest and many
others. They can share their burden; emotionally connect with each other’s issues and discuss
issues of coming concerns. Doctors, experts, nurses would also be a part of this social media
group where mothers can ask for suggestions when they want (Seth et al., 2016).
Another of a very important initiative that should be developed by the local government is the
development of a public policy. Eminent policy makers and researchers would develop the
policy that would include all the stakeholders like the healthcare centres, community centres, GP
practices, organisations and others could be benefitted. The policy would be a guidance by which
the mothers attending such institutions would be treated with care and try to develop
interventions for their betterment. Effective treatment of the mothers in such periods with
compassion and empathy would help them to feel relieved and overcome burden.
The funding would be allocated by the NGO of every community through fund allocation and
resource allocation of the local government and also by the publicly funded hospitals. Besides
the NGOs caring for mothers help would come forward and develop a joint project by effective
partnership. This would help to ensure that the project becomes successful and helps mothers
lead a better quality life.

DEPRESSION IN WOMEN IN AUSTRALIA
Conclusion:
From the entire discussion, it becomes clear that antenatal and postpartum depression
results in poor quality life of women in the nation of Australia. Important screening sessions,
arrangement of seminars and workshops to make them identify the symptoms is important.
Besides, distribution of pamphlets and developing a social app to make all the mothers connected
would also help in exchanging of information. The government should also contribute to this
noble cause by developing a policy by which such disorders of mothers can be identified and
successfully treated in every community. The program would be give the name of “Nurture the
mother” Therefore, effective health promotion program should be developed so that mothers and
babies can lead high quality life. This would make the nation one of the safest areas for future
generation.

DEPRESSION IN WOMEN IN AUSTRALIA
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