Transient vs enduring distress in late pregnancy using the EPDS: a brief longitudinal exploratory study

ABSTRACT

Background and Objective: The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) is widely used to detect perinatal distress in women by one single administration. Recently, research has shown that during early pregnancy around half of the women scoring as ‘possibly depressed’ on the EPDS only have transient distress, when re-tested after few weeks. This finding may not occur if women are screened later in pregnancy, as their worries then may be more enduring; therefore an exploratory study was conducted to further investigate this issue.

Methods: Pregnant women (N = 84) attending a public hospital in Italy completed the EPDS in their third trimester (x = 33 weeks) and again 8–42 days later (while still pregnant). They had not received professional mental health intervention in this time interval.

Results: Approximately half of the women who initially scored high on the EPDS in late pregnancy no longer scored high just a few weeks later.

Conclusions: Approximately half of women who initially score high on the EPDS when screened in pregnancy only have transient distress in both the second and third trimester. To label these women as being ‘possibly depressed’, and mixing them with women who show enduring distress, represents a possible weakness in research studies, and may also overburden clinical services. We would therefore recommend, as research and clinical practice, a second administration of the EPDS if a woman initially scores in the distressed range at any stage in pregnancy.

KEYWORDS:

• Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale
• pregnancy
• transient distress
• enduring distress
• perinatal depression

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. We have not conducted similar analyses on the anxiety measure (STAI-S) as its instructions preclude the notion of possible stability over time.