• Kristin J Hung, Mark Tomlinson, Ingrid M le Roux, Sarah Dewing, Mickey Chopra, and Alexander C Tsai.
• Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, USA. Electronic address: khung@bidmc.harvard.edu.
• Int J Gynaecol Obstet. 2014 Jul 1;126(1):74-7.

ObjectiveTo assess the feasibility of using community health workers to administer short or ultra-short screening instruments during routine community-based prenatal outreach for detecting probable depression at 12 weeks postpartum.MethodsDuring pregnancy and at 12 weeks postpartum, the 10-item Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS-10) was administered to 249 Xhosa-speaking black African women living in Khayelitsha, South Africa. We compared the operating characteristics of the prenatal EPDS-10, as well as 4 short and ultra-short subscales, with the criterion standard of probable postpartum depression.ResultsSeventy-nine (31.7%) women were assessed as having probable postpartum depression. A prenatal EPDS-10 score of 13 or higher had 0.67 sensitivity and 0.67 specificity for detecting probable postpartum depression. Briefer subscales performed similarly.ConclusionCommunity health workers successfully conducted community-based screening for depression in a resource-limited setting using short or ultra-short screening instruments. However, overall feasibility was limited because prenatal screening failed to accurately predict probable depression during the postpartum period.Copyright © 2014 International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

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