Patient Health Questionnaire Depression Scale (PHQ-9) for Perinatal Depression Screening

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Thank you for your reply to my post. Your feedback has further expanded my perspective on depression during the perinatal period. It has enabled me to understand the essential responsibilities of PMHNPs and their close collaboration with the obstetrician-gynaecologist in ensuring patients receive optimum and desirable care. The observation about the frequency or bare minimum recommendations for screening demonstrates this mental health issue’s increased attention today. Such approaches should always occur using standardized and validated tools. Other than the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) discussed earlier, these healthcare providers can also use the Patient Health Questionnaire Depression Scale (PHQ-9) as an alternative for perinatal depression assessment.
PHQ-9 has been in use by healthcare providers for diagnosing depression in diverse groups, including populations in their perinatal period, for years. Wang et al. (2021) report that this tool’s adaptability and applicability in diverse clinical settings, varying age groups, and health conditions make it the most used globally. Neupane et al. (2021) also make similar recognition of PHQ-9 and indicate that it has unique strengths. For instance, the author notes that, unlike EPDS, PHQ-9 has standardized cutoffs. As a result, this component makes it a robust approach for screening depression among women in their perinatal period. Despite these strengths, ...