Postpartum Depression in a Community Sample of American Indian Mothers

American Indian (AI) mothers experience high rates of postpartum depression (PPD). We evaluated the factor structure of the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) among AI mothers from a rural AI serving health system. We also investigated potential associations between EPDS scores and selected psychosocial factors (n = 315). Exploratory Factor Analysis (n = 157) showed that a one-factor structure best fits the data. A Confirmatory Factor Analysis was then conducted to examine the fit of the one-factor model (n = 158). Goodness-of-fit statistics showed overall poor model fit (RMSEA = .13) which may be suggestive of an indicator of depression among Natives not detected by the EPDS. Results of the multiple regression analysis were non-significant. The findings demonstrated that while the EPDS measured aspects of PPD, there may be additional aspects of depression specific to the AI women in our sample not captured by the EPDS. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.