Calibración del punto de corte para la escala de depresión perinatal de Edinburgh, en pacientes obstétricas del Instituto Nacional de Perinatología

objective: to measure the epds by determining the cutting-point which will determine the best equilibrium between sensibility and specificity on two to three months pregnancy patients at the instituto nacional de perinatología (inper). material and methods: an investigation was held at the inper, on 264 external patients -with a 13 to 40 weeks pregnancy range- who freely accepted to participate after being fully informed of the scope of the research. epds and eamd tests were given to them. the data was analyzed by means of the descriptive and inference statistics using the spss 10 statistics package. results: sensibility values of .74 and specificity values of .83 were obtained for an equal or higher 14 points score, which is the best equilibrium between sensibility and specificity. the .8454 score reliability obtained by cronbach alpha was similar to the scores obtained during previous research. taking into account the14 cutting-point on the epds and the 44 on the eamd, a "probable perinatal depression" prevails on patients at the institute. conclusions: the epds scale proved to be a reliable and valid detection instrument for "probable perinatal depression" on patients with a 13 to 40 pregnancy range. with reference to previous research, the cutting-point is increased by 2 to 3 points and so is the prevalence in relation to any type of population. the early detection of a probable depressive episode, allows relevant warnings, thus avoiding future complications.