DIFFERENTIATING TRANSIENT AND ENDURING DISTRESS USING THE EDINBURGH POSTNATAL DEPRESSION SCALE DURING PREGNANCY

The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale is a widely-used instrument both in research and in clinical settings for screening depression in the perinatal period. It is generally administered only once, although some authors suggest a two-stage screening procedure plus an interview to confirm the presence of depression. Several studies have demonstrated that more than half of women who scored high on the EPDS, when re-tested a few weeks later, no longer scored high. Matthey & Ross-Hamid (2012),in their antenatal study, define this phenomenon as “transient distress”, that is normal distress that can occur in early gestational age, distinguishing it from the kind of distress that is still present when patients are re-tested (“enduring distress”).The aim of this study was to investigate whether the scores obtained at the third trimester of pregnancy were related to “transient” or “enduring” distress, and in particular whether there was a difference between rates obtained in the early second trimester and in the period examined in the present study, the late third trimester. 98 Italian women in their third trimester of pregnancy (Time 1, T1), recruited from antenatal classes, were asked to fill in a series of self-report questionnaires, including EPDS.Approximately 1-6 weeks later (Time 2, T2), 86 of them were re-tested. The data have been analysed using the cut-off score of 10 or more. At T1, 26% of participants scored high; at T2 half of the women (13 out of 22, or 59%) who scored high at T1 no longer scored high. Very few (3 out of 64, or 5%) who scored low at T1 scored high at T2. The present findings confirm the need to endorse the practice of a double administration of EPDS for women who initially score high.