Validation of the MGMQ in screening for emotional difficulties in women during pregnancy

Background: Screening for emotional health difficulties in pregnant or postpartum women is becoming routine practice in health services. This screening is often done using the EPDS, usually using a screen positive score just to identify possible depression. This and other such scales often have a myriad of screen-positive scores, making them impractical within clinical settings. The recent MGMQ screens for a variety of negative moods, is brief, simple, and has just a few screen-positive thresholds. Method: At recruitment 391 women attending routine antenatal clinics completed various mood questionnaires. Several weeks later they were re-contacted by phone, at which time 247-252 of them provided valid data on the MGMQ, EPDS, and a diagnostic interview for depression and anxiety disorders (numbers vary depending upon valid combinations). Results: The MGMQ showed good-excellent receiver operating characteristics (sensitivity specificity, positive predictive value) against diagnostic status for depression or anxiety disorders. It also showed good concurrent and concordant validity with the EPDS, and good discriminant validity between women with clinical and subclinical diagnostic caseness. Stability over several weeks was however low, indicating that, as with other measures, women's mood can naturally change during the perinatal period. Limitations: The findings only apply to English-speaking antenatal women from Sydney, Australia. Conclusion: The MGMQ has good psychometric properties when compared to the usual gold-standard applied to emotional health screening measures. Its brevity, simplicity to 'score' and interpret, together with its clinically useful questions, suggest it could be a practical alternative to other more complicated mood screening measures for perinatal women.