Khan, Ferdousi; (1998) A pilot study of screening for postnatal depression in Bengali mothers. Doctoral thesis (D.Clin.Psy.), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), a 10-item self-rating scale designed to screen for postnatal depression, was developed for use with Bengali women. It was adapted using the back-translation method. The Bengali version of the EPDS was then validated against the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ). In order to investigate the effect of contextual differences, 22 postpartum Bengali women were recruited in Bangladesh, and 26 postpartum Bengali women were recruited in London. All subjects were between 8 weeks and 12 months postpartum. During pre-arranged home visits the participants were required to self-administer the EPDS and the GHQ, except in cases where there were literacy problems. In order to investigate the relationship between social support and postpartum distress, the researcher also administered a semi-structured interview to assess the extent of practical and emotional support available to the mothers. Both the qualitative and quantitative findings indicated that the EPDS, in its current form, has limited use as a self report questionnaire to screen for postnatal depression in Bengali women. The qualitative analysis also suggested that further modification of the scale is required to achieve greater scale equivalence. The results further indicated a significant relationship between social support and postpartum psychological distress. The effect of context on EPDS scores was not found to be statistically significant, although qualitative contextual differences were identified. Another single predictor of distress was found to be the mothers age; younger mothers were likely to have higher EPDS scores.

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