Free listing and ranking

An overview of participants and data collection activities can be found in Table 1. We first conducted free listing and ranking (cf. [27, 28]) embedded in semi-structured interviews with 22 primary and 22 community health care workers from HC Is, IIs, and IIIs in each sub-county. Free listing was conducted individually with the exception of one group exercise with community health care workers (Table ​(Table1).1). Specifically, we asked participants “what are the most common problems for which pregnant women, or women who have just given birth, visit the health center?” Participants were invited to provide as many answers as possible and were probed to include all of the (physical) health, mental health, social and spiritual or supernatural problems that may lead perinatal women to visit the health center. The interviewer wrote down answers verbatim. Among the problems that were listed, interviewers asked the participants which problems they considered to be related to thoughts, feelings or behaviors (i.e. mental health problems) and to rank the three mental health problems that they felt were most important. Participants were then asked about help-seeking and current health center resources for the three most highly prioritized maternal mental health problems.

Overview of participants and methods

AI Additional Information, SC1 Sub-county 1, as a confidentiality safeguard, sub-counties are numbered