Partners to Parents: development of an online intervention for enhancing partner support and preventing perinatal depression and anxiety

Objective: Couples-based interventions to prevent perinatal depression and anxiety are needed to optimise parental well-being and infant mental health. Current interventions are limited by their focus on maternal mental health, postnatal outcomes, and a reliance on professionals for their delivery. This article describes the development of Partners to Parents (http://www.partnerstoparents.org), an online intervention for preventing perinatal depression and anxiety focused on enhancing partner support. Method: Individual usability testing sessions were conducted with 12 parents in the perinatal period (7 women and 5 men) to assess the quality of the website. A deductive coding scheme was applied using NVivo 10 to identify comments relating to system and content quality of the website, as well as positive and negative comments. Results: The results of the usability testing yielded more than 250 comments on system and content quality, potential barriers to accessing the website, and suggestions for improvement. This feedback was used to update the design of the intervention.Discussion: The usability testing sessions suggested that the majority of the mothers and fathers involved perceived the website to be a useful new resource. Consultation with potential users of the website enabled refinement of the content and design of the Partners to Parents website.