Community-Based Postpartum Depression Screening Within the First Month After Delivery
June Andrews Horowitz
Professor, William F Connell School of Nursing, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachussetts, United States of America
PP: 85 - 93
Abstract
Postpartum depression (PPD) is a common childbirth complication. Approximately 500,000 women in the United States each year experience PPD, and about half of these women are not evaluated or treated appropriately. Although available screening measures can detect PPD symptoms, screening is not yet standard practice.
This article presents outcomes from PPD screening of a community-based sample of 1,071 women at 2-4 weeks after delivery. Overall PPD symptom prevalence was 19.7%. Detection of PPD could be increased significantly by adapting research-based screening approaches to clinical care.
Keywords
postpartum depression, screening, childbirth, mental health
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