Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale🔗

Name

Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS)

Table Namepex_bm_epds
Construct

Postnatal Depression

Study Visits

V01, V02, V03

TypeIn-person/Remote Questionnaire (Parent on Self; 3 min)
Quality Control
  • Checks for missing data based on counts for items completed by each participant.
  • Verification of scoring accuracy.
  • Summary statistics to examine item-level frequencies and total scores.
  • Review of response distributions for potential outliers.

Instrument Details🔗

The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) is a sensitive, 10-item screening tool for prenatal and postpartum depression symptoms. It was selected for the HBCD Study to capture symptoms of prenatal and postnatal depression due to its ease of administration and widely accepted use.

Questionnaire prompt/instructions:

Since you are either pregnant or have recently had a baby, we want to know how you feel. MARK the answer that comes closest to how you have felt IN THE PAST 7 DAYS-not just how you feel today. In the past 7 days…

In the HBCD study, a ‘Decline to answer’ option was added to all items. A ‘Don’t know’ option was also available early in data collection, but was subsequently removed. Questions answered with ‘Decline to answer’ or ‘Don’t know’ are marked as missing. In addition, scores for EPDS Self-Harm (score>1) and Depression (total score>11) triggered clinical alerts for study staff.

Items are scored on a 0→3 scale. Items 3, 5–10 are reverse-scored (i.e., 3→0): this is already reflected in the raw responses and no additional item-level scoring is required. Total scores are calculated as the sum of item responses. Scores are not prorated or set to missing for incomplete items; users should determine how to handle missing data.

Cox, J. L., Holden, J. M., & Sagovsky, R. (1987). Detection of postnatal depression . Development of the 10-item Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. British Journal of Psychiatry, 150, 782–786. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.150.6.782