A comparison of the PHQ-2 and MGMQ for screening for emotional health difficulties during pregnancy

Background: Routine screening for emotional health difficulties in women during pregnancy is now advocated in several countries. There is a need therefore to compare the performance of different self-report measures to accomplish this. This study reports on the comparative performance of two such measures-the well-established PHQ-2, which aims to detect depression, and the more recent MGMQ, which aims to detect a wide array of negative emotions. Method: Women (N = 2292) attending a public hospital antenatal clinic over a 14-month period completed the two measures, either on their own (72%), verbally administered by the midwife (25%), or with an interpreter (3%). Results: Similar rates of women screened positive on each instrument (PHQ-2: 11.6%; MGMQ: 12.3%), but the overlap between the two measures was low. The PHQ-2 only detected 58% of the MGMQ screen positive women, while the MGMQ detected 89.5% of the PHQ-2 screen positive women. No clinically meaningful difference in screen positive rates on either measure was evident for the administration method. Limitations: No demographic data were available apart from gestational age, and only about half the women presenting to the clinic during the time period were screened with the measures. Conclusion: The MGMQ detected a greater proportion of women screening positive on the PHQ-2 than vice-versa. This is part due to the MGMQ's focus on a wider range of negative emotions than just depression. Accumulating evidence for this MGMQ indicates that clinical services can consider using this simple measure if they wish to screen for a broad range of negative emotions during pregnancy and postnatally.