Screening for Depression and Anxiety Disorders from Pregnancy to Postpartum with the EPDS and STAI

Abstract

The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) and the State Anxiety Inventory (STAI-S) are widely used self-report measures that still need to be further validated for the perinatal period. The aim of this study was to examine the screening performance of the EPDS and the STAI-S in detecting depressive and anxiety disorders at pregnancy and postpartum. Women screening positive on EPDS (EPDS ≥ 9) or STAI-S (STAI-S ≥ 45) during pregnancy (n = 90), as well as matched controls (n = 58) were selected from a larger study. At 3 months postpartum, 99 of these women were reassessed. At a second stage, women were administered a clinical interview to establish a DSM-IV-TR diagnosis. Receiver operator characteristics (ROC) analysis yielded areas under the curve higher than .80 and .70 for EPDS and STAI-S, respectively. EPDS and STAI-S optimal cut-offs were found to be lower at postpartum (EDPS = 7; STAI-S = 34) than during pregnancy (EPDS = 9; STAI-S = 40). EPDS and STAI-S are reasonably valid screening tools during pregnancy and the postpartum.

Prevalence and risk factors for comorbid postpartum depressive symptomatology and anxiety

“…Depression and anxiety were not clinically diagnosed. The EPDS and STAI are, however, wellstudied measures of depressive symptomatology and anxiety and have been validated in perinatal populations (Tendais et al, 2014). This may have led to overestimate of the prevalence of comorbid postpartum depressive symptomatology (Eberhard-Gran et al, 2001;Khalifa et al, 2015) and anxiety (Grant et al, 2008;Roos et al, 2013).…”

The Relationship Between Maternal Postpartum Psychological State and Breast Milk Secretory Immunoglobulin A Level

“…The questionnaire is composed of 40 items, with a cumulative score ranging from 20 to 80 points; higher scores indicate greater anxiety. This scale is effective in evaluating postpartum mothers' psychological conditions (Tendais, Costa, Conde, & Figueiredo, 2014) and was translated into Japanese by Mizuguchi, Shimonaka, and Nakazato (1991).…”

Association of Prepregnancy Dietary Patterns and Anxiety Symptoms from Midpregnancy to Early Postpartum in a Prospective Cohort of Brazilian Women

“…36 This instrument was then translated and adapted for use in Brazil by Biaggio and Natalício. 37 Recently, Tendais and colleagues 38 validated the instrument in the pregnancy and postnatal periods. This inventory consists of two distinct scales to measure the two concepts of anxiety (ie, state and trait anxiety).…”