Background: Anxiety in pregnancy and postpartum is highly prevalent but under-recognized and few women receive adequate support or treatment. Identification and management of perinatal anxiety must be acceptable to women in the perinatal period to ensure that women receive appropriate care when needed. We aimed to understand the acceptability to women of how anxiety was identified and managed by healthcare professionals.

Method: We conducted in-depth qualitative interviews with 60 women across England and Scotland approximately 10 months after birth. Women were sampled from an existing systematically recruited cohort of 2,243 women who recorded mental health throughout pregnancy and after birth. All women met criteria for further assessment of their mental health by a healthcare professional. We analyzed the data using a theoretical framework of acceptability of healthcare interventions.

Results: Interview data fitted the seven constructs within the theoretical framework of acceptability. Women valued suppo