

Remember that the EPDS is NOT diagnostic of mental disorder. Establish its sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and optimal cut-off points for the purpose of your clinical or research work.

It seems that the EPDS not only measures postpartum depression but also may be measuring something more. Be careful to check the validity of the scale for the population of mothers completing the EPDS. This preliminary validation study of the Iranian version of the EPDS proved that it is an acceptable, reliable and valid measure of postnatal depression. The factor analysis indicated a three-factor structure that jointly accounted for 58% of the variance. The questionnaire discriminated well between sub-groups of women differing in mode of delivery in the expected direction. Validity as performed using known groups comparison showed satisfactory results. In addition, test-rest reliability was performed and the intraclass correlation coefficient was found to be 0.80. Cronbach's alpha coefficient (to test reliability) was found to be 0.77 at time 1 and 0.86 at time 2. In general, the Iranian version of the EPDS was found to be acceptable to almost all women. Overall 22% of women at time 1 and 18% at time 2 reported experiencing postpartum depression. Statistical analysis was performed to test the reliability and validity of the EPDS. The questionnaire was administered to a consecutive sample of 100 women with normal (n = 50) and caesarean section (n = 50) deliveries at two points in time: 6 to 8 weeks and 12 to 14 weeks after delivery. The English language version of the EPDS was translated into Persian (Iranian language) and was used in this study. This study aimed to translate and to test the reliability and validity of the EPDS in Iran. The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) is a widely used instrument to measure postnatal depression.
