Screening for postpartum depression rare.

WASHINGTON -- Only 9% of 276 physicians surveyed use standardized screening measures to assess patients for postpartum depression, reported Randy Fingerhut, Ph.D., in a poster presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies.

Previous studies have shown that as many as 50% of all cases of postpartum depression remain undetected by physicians, wrote Dr. Fingerhut and his colleagues at La Salle University in Philadelphia.

The study included 95 obstetricians and 181 pediatricians based in Pennsylvania. Overall, 77% of obstetricians reported screening patients for postpartum depression prenatally, and 93% screened postnatally. By contrast, only 47% of pediatricians reported assessing mothers for postpartum depression.

Physicians completed the Postpartum Depression Survey, which asks true/false questions about postpartum depression, and the Postpartum Screening and Assessment Questionnaire, which includes questions about physician procedures for handling cases of postpartum depression.

A slight majority (58%) of the physicians estimated that 0%-10% of their patients experienced postpartum depression, which is lower than the 10%-20% shown in previous studies. This discrepancy may be attributable to the infrequent use of a standard screening method, the investigators noted. The physicians reported a range of interventions, and most believed that medication was superior to psychotherapy for postpartum depression.

Although only 11% of the physicians considered themselves to be "extremely knowledgeable" about postpartum depression, 87% said they were interested in learning more about the condition.