Yagaantsetseg J. 

Health Sciences University of Mongolia

The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) and the World Health Organization's Self Reporting Questionnaire-20 (SRQ-20) were validated in 41 postnatal women and 59 women with severe, moderate and mild forms of depression (total sample number-100). The EPDS and SRQ-20 were validated using the revised version of the Clinical Interview Schedule (CIS-R) and psychiatric assessments. The results showed that the SRQ-20 as a tool for detecting common mental diseases had 92.9% and 87.2% sensitivity, 97.4% and 74.5% specificity and 98.1 % and 77.4% positive predictive values compared with psychiatric evaluation and CTS-R diagnosis, respectively. The EPDS showed a lower correlation with 85.7% and 80.9% sensitivity, 71.1% and 61.7% specificity and 81.4% and 67.9% positive predictive values. The optimal cut off point for the SRQ-20 was chosen as 8/9 and for the EPDS the cut off point was 12/13. These cut off points gave the best balance between sensitivity and specificity. In conclusion, the main findings were that the EPDS and the SRQ-20 are valid instruments in detecting postnatal depression and common mental diseases.