The BC Reproductive Mental Health program and Perinatal Services BC encourages all primary care, maternity care, allied health, and public health professionals seeing individuals in the perinatal period to continue to use the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) to screen for depression.
We do not agree with the recent recommendation against such screening by the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care (CTFPHC). A detailed letter to the editor explaining our concerns, which we wrote in collaboration with perinatal mental health organizations, clinicians, and researchers across Canada, was submitted to CMAJ Open.
The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) is a set of 10 screening questions that can indicate whether a parent has symptoms that are common in women with depression and anxiety during pregnancy and in the year following the birth of a child. This is not intended to provide a diagnosis – only trained health professionals should do this.
It is strongly recommended that this set of questions is completed with a health professional.
To complete this set of questions, the parent should select the number next to the response that comes closest to how they have felt in the past seven days.
The total score is calculated by adding the numbers selected for each of the 10 items. If the parent’s score is 10 points or above, they should speak to a health professional about those symptoms.
Translated Versions of the EPDS Questionnaire
The following are translated versions to be used by health professionals only. It is strongly recommended that parents complete these questions with a health professional.
Translations in Arabic, Urdu, Dari and Serbo-Croatian are available upon request to
psbc@phsa.ca.
