DEPRESSION SCREENING

Screening for depression during the perinatal visit is a standard of care. We routinely ask our patients several important questions:
"Have you been feeling depressed?
Are you happy?
Have you been sleeping at night?"
These questions, although appropriate, are probably not enough to initiate a discussion regarding the patient's state of mind. Unfortunately, many providers are pressed for time, and questions that may elicit evidence of perinatal depression are no doubt not being asked by many providers. Furthermore, many providers may be afraid of the answers they may elicit because they feel unprepared to address these sorts of problems.
Providers should not be hesitant to screen for perinatal depression. They can screen for it by using established questionnaires. Screening for perinatal depression by having the patients respond to questions from these questionnaires called depression scales ultimately may be more efficient and better ensure that appropriate interventions are initiated. There are several depression scales that can be used, including the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), which is a 10 item, self-report questionnaire, and can be completed in 5 minutes.

EPDS- http://www.dbpeds.org/media/edinburghscale.pdf