Journal article
Assessment of perinatal anxiety: diagnostic accuracy of five measures
- Abstract:
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Background
Anxiety in pregnancy and after giving birth (the perinatal period) is highly prevalent but under-recognised. Robust methods of assessing perinatal anxiety are essential for services to identify and treat women appropriately.Aims
To determine which assessment measures are most psychometrically robust and effective at identifying women with perinatal anxiety (primary objective) and depression (secondary objective).Method
We conducted a prospective longitudinal cohort study of 2243 women who completed five measures of anxiety and depression (Generalized Anxiety Disorder scale (GAD) two- and seven-item versions; Whooley questions; Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation (CORE-10); and Stirling Antenatal Anxiety Scale (SAAS)) during pregnancy (15 weeks, 22 weeks and 31 weeks) and after birth (6 weeks). To assess diagnostic accuracy a sample of 403 participants completed modules of the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI).Results
The best diagnostic accuracy for anxiety was shown by the CORE-10 and SAAS. The best diagnostic accuracy for depression was shown by the CORE-10, SAAS and Whooley questions, although the SAAS had lower specificity. The same cut-off scores for each measure were optimal for identifying anxiety or depression (SAAS ≥9; CORE-10 ≥9; Whooley ≥1). All measures were psychometrically robust, with good internal consistency, convergent validity and unidimensional factor structure.Conclusions
This study identified robust and effective methods of assessing perinatal anxiety and depression. We recommend using the CORE-10 or SAAS to assess perinatal anxiety and the CORE-10 or Whooley questions to assess depression. The GAD-2 and GAD-7 did not perform as well as other measures and optimal cut-offs were lower than currently recommended.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 360.3KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1192/bjp.2023.174
+ National Institute for Health and Care Excellence
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- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/015ah0c92
- Grant:
- NIHR 17/105/16
- Publisher:
- Royal College of Psychiatrists
- Journal:
- British Journal of Psychiatry More from this journal
- Volume:
- 224
- Issue:
- 4
- Pages:
- 132-138
- Place of publication:
- England
- Publication date:
- 2024-01-25
- Acceptance date:
- 2023-11-17
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1472-1465
- ISSN:
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0007-1250
- Pmid:
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38270148
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1621851
- Local pid:
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pubs:1621851
- Deposit date:
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2024-03-06
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Ayers et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2024
- Rights statement:
- © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Royal College of Psychiatrists. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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