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A proposal for a new Brazilian six-item version of the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale
Maicon Rodrigues Albuquerque1,2, Humberto Corrêa2,3,4, Tiago Castro E Couto3
1Departamento de Esportes, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil.
Introduction::
Factor analysis of the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) could result in a shorter and easier to handle screening tool. Therefore, the aim of this study was to check and compare the metrics of two different 6-item EPDS subscales.
Methods::
We administered the EPDS to a total of 3,891 women who had given birth between 1 and 3 months previously. We conducted confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses and plotted receiver-operating characteristics (ROC) curves to, respectively, determine construct validity, scale items' fit to the data, and ideal cutoff scores for the short versions.
Results::
A previously defined 6-item scale did not exhibit construct validity for our sample. Nevertheless, we used exploratory factor analysis to derive a new 6-item scale with very good construct validity. The area under the ROC curve of the new 6-item scale was 0.986 and the ideal cutoff score was ≥ 6.
Conclusions::
The new 6-item scale has adequate psychometric properties and similar ROC curve values to the10-item version and offers a means of reducing the cost and time taken to administer the instrument.