Validation of a Spanish version of the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale

Abstract

Introduction. The objective of this study is to validate a version in Spanish of the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) in Peruvian women with less than 1 year of delivery.

Method. We administered the EPDS and the SCID section for diagnosis of major depression according to DSM-IV criteria to 321 women within the first year of postpartum.

Results. We found that the optimum cut-off score of the EPDS for the studied population was 13.5. With this value the sensitivity was 84.21% and the specificity 79.47% for diagnosis of major depression. No woman with score lower than 7.5 had major depression (sensitivity and negative predictive value were 100%). The correlation coefficient between the EPDS score and the number of criterion A symptoms for major depression according to DSM-IV was 0.4478. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.7043. The items that had more predictive power for postpartum depression were those regarding worries, ability to cope, panic, cry and optimism.

Conclusions. The version in Spanish of the EPDS performed adequately in Peruvian women.