Prevalence of postnatal depression in Western Nigerian women: a controlled study

Objective. The objective of this study is to compare the prevalence of depression in postpartum women and that of non-postpartum women. Method. A total of 876 women recruited at 6 weeks postpartum and 900 matched non-postpartum women were administered the Beck's Depressive Inventory (BDI) and translated local version of the EPDS. Psychiatric diagnosis was made using the using the modified non-patient version of Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R (SCID-NP). Results. Depressive disorder was diagnosed in 128 (14.6%) of the postpartum women and in 55 (6.3%) of the non-postpartum women, and the difference was found to be significant (t = 8.919, df = 875, P< 0.001). The postpartum women had higher EPDS and BDI scores than the non-postpartum women. The EPDS correlated well with the SCID-NP diagnosis with a Spearman's correlation of 0.600 ( P< 0.001) and with the BDI score with a Spearman's correlation of 0.461 (P< 0.001). The sensitivity of the EPDS at cut-off score of 8/9 was 94% and specificity was 97%. Conclusion. The prevalence of postnatal depression in Nigeria is comparable to that of the western world and the Yoruba version of EPDS is a valid instrument for screening postnatal women for depressive disorders in a Nigerian community.