Specifically, the Spanish language version of the PHQ-9 was tested and found to be a reliable and efficient screening measure for depression severity in primary care [ 38- 40] and it has been validated among both prenatal and postpartum women.
The control group was selected from participants in an ongoing prospective cohort study designed to validate biomarkers of prenatal insecticide exposure.
Although originally developed to screen for postnatal depression (Cox et al. 1987), it has subsequently been validated for use within the prenatal period (Murray and Cox 1990).
38 39 The sensitivity and specificity for pre-eclampsia on the hospital discharge summaries (validated against chart abstraction of prenatal and medical and obstetrical records) were 88% and 95%, respectively, while the positive and negative predictive values were 91% and 98%, respectively.
Self-reported prenatal ETS exposure was validated with a biomarker (cotinine levels in cord blood).
The routine use of objective, validated, and highly specific markers of prenatal alcohol exposure would help improve FASD identification, which currently is hampered by a lack of good information.
They include the single 48-hr prenatal monitoring, the lack of HOME Inventory data, and the fact that although the prenatal ETS questionnaire data were validated by cotinine, the estimate of postnatal ETS was based on interviews alone.
Serum samples from pregnant women, representing the dynamic range of both markers, were analyzed on these Ab-arrays, and the results validated to the results obtained by the, in prenatal screening routinely applied, AutoDELFIA system [ 6].
Overall, the interviewer-administered CES-D scale, as validated in this study, was a reliable and valid instrument for screening for prenatal depression among pregnant women attending ANC services in northern Uganda.
