Josh Imhof | staff writer

Two Duquesne nursing students presented at the university’s 2025 Undergraduate Research Symposium on April 3. Just five days later, they headed Downtown to share their findings at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.

Seniors Michael Archer and Riley Bowers spent most of the school year interviewing nurses about their experiences administering screenings for postpartum depression, a severe mood disorder that affects one in seven mothers, according to their research.

“There wasn’t any research on nurses’ experience with dealing with postpartum depression or screening for it,” Archer said. “We thought it’d be interesting to see what they thought of the scale; what they thought was good, what they thought was bad and what could be better.”

Starting in the fall, Archer and Bowers spoke with 11 maternal and child health nurses at a local hospital and asked them what it was like to use the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Screening, the industry standard for identifying postpartum depression.

This scale presents mothers with 10 statements that assess their mental health, which they can either agree or disagree with at varying levels.

While this scale has proven to be effective, Archer and Bowers reported that the nurses felt it had its limitations, particularly in four areas that they identified through their research: communication barriers, emotional barriers, connecting through compassion and care coordination.

Each of these areas present their own challenges, according to Archer and Bowers. Nurses must figure out on their own how to properly overcome them.

“A doctor’s not going to come up to you and say, ‘This is what we’re doing, this is how things are going to go.’ It’s on you to figure out,” Bowers said.

Nurses must instead rely on their own skills to advocate for patients. Through their research and clinical experience, Archer and Bowers found that nurses must use non-verbal cues, family dynamics and medical history to form diagnoses.

“A huge part of nursing, probably one of the biggest things, is just being able to communicate with your patients to figure out what’s going on or if things are changing,” Bowers said.

Archer and Bowers also learned of many roadblocks nurses run into, one of the main ones being the stigma surrounding a postpartum diagnosis. Bowers said she believes this stigma causes the condition to slip through the cracks.

“You have a baby, it’s supposed to be like the happiest time of your life… but I think moms get put on the back burner and don’t really want to be honest about how they’re feeling,” Bowers said.

Even if a mother is diagnosed with postpartum depression, it can take weeks or even months before they receive proper treatment.

This aspect is a more widespread healthcare issue, said Associate Professor Jessica Devido, a mentor on the project.

“We’re at a point where we need more and more providers at all levels to be able to adequately care for our society,” Devido said. “As time goes on, we have more and more technology, so there’s more and more demands placed on healthcare providers and what they’re responsible for and less people to do it.”

This makes the jobs nurses do even more important, said Angela Karakachian, assistant professor of nursing and another faculty mentor on the project.

“Nurses are also at the front line when it comes to screening. Whether it’s for depression or it’s for child maltreatment, they are the point of contact,” Karakachian said. “They are the people who are spending a lot more time with their patients than any other health care provider.”

Both professors instill these values into their students in the classroom, even if they can only do so for a short time due to the rapid pace of the curriculum.

Last year, Karakachian conducted a simulation study where students had to detect child maltreatment, allowing them to build on their observational and communication skills. Devido developed a maternal child health equity fellowship in order to give specific clinical and educational experiences to students planning to go into maternal child health.

Being in those environments helped the two students to develop communication and patient advocacy skills.

“It’s really important just to take a step back and reflect on how you can get to know your patient best and make them feel comfortable and safe to be vulnerable around you,” Bowers said.

Josh Imhof can be reached at imhofj@duq.edu.