Identifying Mothers at Risk for Postnatal Emotional Distress

What is it about?

We evaluated the construct validity of the Perinatal Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Questionnaire. Using a convergent/divergent validity design and two data sources, 121 high-risk and 52 low-risk mothers answered four questionnaires. High-risk mothers scored higher than low-risk mothers on all measures of emotional distress. There were significant positive correlations among the convergent measures of emotional distress, which were significantly larger than any correlation of the divergent measure with a convergent measure. Scores on the Perinatal Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Questionnaire were positively related to mothers seeking formal psychotherapy for their childbirth experiences. Questionnaire responses were not related to data source.

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