Background: Depression and anxiety are the most prevalent emotional difficulties in the perinatal period and there is agreement that early intervention is an important strategy to prevent long-lasting effects on mother and child. Literature has recently shown that the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) is able to measure not only depression but also anxiety.
Objective: To investigate the factorial structure of the EPDS in Italian-speaking new mothers.
Method: 416 women attending vaccination services between 2 and 4 months postpartum filled in the EPDS. Exploratory (EFA) and Confirmatory (CFA) analyses were carried out.
Results: The EFA on the first part of the sample (n = 208) showed a two-factor structure. The CFAs on the second sample of mothers (n = 208) provided support for the 'EPDS-4A', with items 3,4,5,6 belonging to the Anxiety factor and items 1,2,7,8,9,10 to the Depression factor. The fit for the model was good: χ2/df = 1.41, p <.001; GFI =.99; CFI =.99; TLI =.88; RMSEA =.04.
Conclusion: A two-factor structure of the EPDS was confirmed suggesting that the EPDS can be used to screen for both depression and anxiety for Italian mothers in the postnatal period.
Keywords: Anxiety; EPDS; confirmatory; depression; exploratory; factorial structure.