Postpartum Depression screening in the media today

[Harry3990]

Was reading about this earlier and just heard a brief piece in NPR as well. This is coming mainly from a recent report in JAMA that's recommending (from what I understand) that most or all pregnant mothers be screened for depression and referred for CBT treatment (or assessment/diagnosis, I would think would be more appropriate) if they score above cutoffs.

Wondering what people's thoughts are. My thought is that this is generally a good thing in terms of increasing awareness, though i've seen more talk of potential problems/downsides on listservs today.

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[WisNeuro]

Not an area that I'm super familiar with. I'd want to know the spontaneous remission rates in X amount of time first. May be more helpful to identify it, provide brief supportive therapy afterwards, and in those who do not remit after a certain length of time, refer for more intensive treatment options.

 

[smalltownpsych]

All of our patients (pregnant or otherwise) are screened for depression with a two item questionnaire (if you can call two items a questionnaire). It is part of the improving quality of care political stuff. The business people are in charge of it and they don't really want the input of providers. No one really seems to be measuring whether that increases referrals to our department for treatment or whether it improves anything really, but it does mean that the hospital will not get a revenue penalty from medicare.