Validation of the Chinese version of the Whooley questions for community screening of postpartum depression

Abstract

Background

The study aims to validate the Whooley questions for screening postpartum depression in Chinese women in a community setting.

Methods

The Whooley questions was translated into Chinese following Beaton's intercultural debugging guidelines. From December 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021, primary maternal and child health workers in Kaifu District and Changsha County in Changsha City recruited women aged 18 years or older who had recently given birth during home visits within seven days of discharge from hospital. Participants women completed the Whooley questions online and underwent a diagnostic interview for DSM-IV within 7 days of the visit. We evaluated Cronbach's alpha, split-half reliability, area under the ROC curve (AUC), sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), and optimal cut-off value of the Whooley questions.

Results

Of the 3,004 eligible women, 1,862 completed the Whooley questions and diagnostic interviews. Sixty-two women (3.3%) were diagnosed with depressive disorders. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.64, the split-half reliability was 0.64. The optimal cut-off value was when at least one questions was answered “yes”, with an AUC of 0.84 (SE=0.03, 95%CI 0.78–0.90, P<0.001), sensitivity of 0.77 (95%CI 0.65–0.87), specificity of 0.89 (95%CI 0.88–0.90), PPV of 0.20 (95%CI 0.15–0.25) and NPV of 0.99 (95%CI 0.98–1.00).

Conclusion

This study shows that the Chinese version of the Whooley questions is a reliable tool for screening postpartum depression in the community, but it may lead to many false positive cases.