Back to:
National

Key contacts

Ailsa Stein - Programme Manager, SIGN.  ailsa.stein@nhs.scot

Kirsty Littleallan - Administrative Officer, SIGN. kirsty.littleallan@nhs.scot

 

Co-chairs of SIGN Guideline Group:

Dr Selena Gleadow Ware, Consultant Perinatal Psychiatrist, NHS Lanarkshire, Selena.Gleadow-Ware@lanarkshire.scot.nhs.uk

Susan McConachie, Regional Perinatal Nurse Consultant, NHS Lothian, susan.mcconachie2@nhslothian.scot.nhs.uk

 

Senior responsible owner 

Roberta James, SIGN Programme Lead.

Accessibility checks

Content has been checked for accessibility in line with the relevant RDS standard operating procedure.

Content management and governance

Authorship

The content in this toolkit has been developed by the SIGN guideline group for SIGN Guideline 169: Perinatal mental health conditions.

Review and approval

Content has been reviewed and approved in line with the SIGN editorial governance process.

Final content was signed off by SIGN Programme Lead.

The content will be considered for update 3 years from publication. Any minor updates brought to the  attention will be dealt with on an "as needed" basis.

Updates will be reviewed and approved in line with the SIGN editorial governance process.

Content updates on the Right Decisions platform will be carried out by the SIGN team, with support from the Right Decision Service team when required.

RDS automated alerts when review is due will be sent to the Programme Manager responsible for the project, and the generic SIGN inbox, sign@sign.ac.uk .

Six months prior to the deadline for update (ie 3 years post publication) a scoping review will be conducted to identify new evidence which may change the recommendations in the toolkit. The results of the scoping review will be circulated to the original guideline development group for comment, and to identify any other new areas for inclusion. Their responses, along with the review results, are submitted to the work programme committee for consideration for update or revalidation.

Content will be updated using the guideline development processes outlined in the SIGN methodology manual, SIGN 50: a guideline developer's handbook.

Amendments will be developed by a multidisciplinary group of clinicians and people with lived experience, subject to peer review, and signed off by the SIGN editorial team.

Content review by clinicians and people with lived experience

The content was reviewed by the clinicians and people with lived experience on the guideline development group.

The SIGN guideline was available for peer review in June 2023. All comments received were addressed and responses published on the SIGN website. The guideline was reviewed by clinical experts from SIGN Council as part of the editorial process.

Copyright

Copyright permission was obtained from the Australian government for use of recommendations from the Centre for Perinatal Excellence (COPE) guideline, Mental Health Care in the Perinatal Period: Australian Clinical Practice guideline, 2023.

Copyright permission was obtained from Professor Marie-Paule Austin, Adjunct Professor, School of Psychiatry, UNSW, to use the version of the Antenatal Risk Questionnaire (ANRQ) deployed in this toolkit..

The City Birth Trauma Scale is free to use in clinical practice or research under a Creative Commons licence. It was published by Ayers S, Wright DB and Thornton A (2018) in Development of a Measure of Postpartum PTSD: The City Birth Trauma Scale. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 9:409.

The authors of the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) grant permission for reproduction. Copyright remains with the British Journal of Psychiatry, as detailed in  Cox, J.L., Holden, J.M. and Sagovsky, R. (1987). Detection of postnatal depression: Development of the 10-item Edinburgh Postnatal
Depression Scale. British Journal of Psychiatry, 150, 782-786.

All icons are from Flaticon.com, accessed through the licence held Tactuum Ltd for the resources supported by the software platform it provides.

 

Evidence base

The content is based on robust evidence-based guidelines. Each recommendation was assessed for suitability for the Scottish healthcare context and acceptability to the patient population in Scotland.

Governance sign-off and ongoing development

The content of this toolkit was reviewed by the SIGN editorial team (October 2023) and signed off by the SIGN Programme Lead.

Ongoing development of the guidance and toolkit

SIGN Council and the SIGN senior management team monitor the SIGN work programme, and SIGN methodology includes procedures for identifying when new evidence prompts an update to current guidance.

Monitoring and acting on feedback and complaints

The email for the SIGN Programme Manager is available in the "Key contacts" section above and can be used to highlight any feedback or complaints.

Any messages received through the RDS Feedback form will also be forwarded to the Programme Manager.

The Programme Manager will address the feedback. If it requires significant amendments, it will be referred to the SIGN senior management team for consideration for the SIGN work programme.

Risk assessment

The toolkit has been risk assessed, and mitigations put in place where required.

User testing

The toolkit was user tested by the group of clinicians and people with lived experience in the guideline development group throughout its development.

The toolkit was available for open consultation in June 2023. Responders were asked to comment on the ease of navigation, look and content of the toolkit. All comments were addressed and responses published on the SIGN website.