Perinatal mental health assessment
The Mothers Object Relations Scales (MORS) are validated and easy-to-use tools for health practitioners and researchers.
Register here to access the tools and further information about their use.
Perinatal mental health assessment
The Mothers Object Relations Scales (MORS) are validated and easy-to-use tools for health practitioners and researchers.
Register here to access the tools and further information about their use.
Mothers Object Relations Scales (MORS)
A core component of an attachment relationship between one person and another is the mental representation that each person has of the other’s feelings for them.
A caregiver’s perception of their infant’s/child’s thoughts, feelings and intentions towards them builds this internal representation as an ‘object’ in the caregiver’s mind. This plays a large part in how the caregiver behaves and interacts, with consequences for the development of the infant/child.
The Mothers Object Relations Scales provide a validated and easy-to-use way of assessing the representation as part of screening in primary care, in making treatment decisions and monitoring response, and in research in perinatal mental health and early child development. It is being used extensively in primary and secondary perinatal mental health services in UK and more widely.
MORS comes in two versions
MORS-SF (short-form)
A 14-item questionnaire for use with caregivers of infants.
An equivalent, MORS-Child
For use with caregivers of children aged between 2 and 4 years.
MORS-SF has two primary clinical applications:
As a screening tool post-partum, as part of universal service delivery or following identification of a possible perinatal mental health difficulty, to identify cases where a mother has a maladaptive representation of her infant and to decide on appropriate psychotherapy focused on helping the mother to interpret her infant’s behaviour in a more healthy way;
and second, to track the course of treatment where a disturbed mother-infant relationship is part of the presenting problem. For serious mental health issues such as puerperal psychosis or schizophrenia, the tool can give insights into the associated disturbances in mothers’ perceptions of their infants, helping the clinical formulation and also tracking response to treatment.
MORS-SF is recommended by the Royal College of Psychiatrists as a routine outcome measure in perinatal psychiatry, and by the Increased Access to Psychological Therapies Under-Fives (IAPT-U5s) programme.
MORS Tools are free to use
Register here to access the tools and further information about their use.