Mental health issues during the perinatal period are common; up to 29% of pregnant and 15% of postpartum women meet psychiatric diagnostic criteria. Despite its ubiquity, little is known about the longitudinal trajectories of perinatal psychiatric illness. This paper describes a collaboration among six perinatal mental health services in Quebec, Canada, to create an electronic databank that captures longitudinal patient data over the course of the perinatal period. The collaborating sites met to identify research interests and to select a standardized set of variables to be collected during clinical appointments. Procedures were implemented for creating a databank that serves both research and clinical purposes. The resulting databank allows pregnant and postpartum patients to complete self-report questionnaires on medical and psychosocial variables during their intake appointment in conjunction with their clinicians who fill in relevant medical information. All participants are followed until 6 months postpartum. The databank represents an opportunity to examine illness trajectories and to study rare mental disorders and the relationship between biological and psychosocial variables.
Keywords: databank; mental health; perinatal health; research.