Response to letter from Coronado-Montoya et al.

Excerpt

The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ)-9 is used widely in primary care and home visiting settings, but its validity had not been established for prenatal depression screening. We undertook our study to address this gap by validating, through accepted methods, the PHQ-9 to screen pregnant women for depression. The validation of this instrument adds to the toolbox for depression screening in prenatal care in the context of current depression screening guidelines and clinical practices. We believe our findings relative to identifying women at risk for depression with this screening instrument stand on their own, within the limitations we articulate. Based on the substantial evidence that both diagnosed depression and elevated depressive symptoms pose a risk to a healthy pregnancy and birth outcomes (Davalos et al. 2012; Alder et al. 2007), we believe that decisions regarding screening during pregnancy are more complex than the letter authors’ discussion acknowledges. …