Indigenizing the Postnatal Blues in Pakistani Context: A Psychometric Study

Abstract

Postnatal Blues is postnatal psychological distress among new mothers. It is marked by partially exasperating physical and affective symptoms having significant etiological relevance for a more debilitating condition named Postnatal Depression. The absence of an assessment protocol for PNBs in Pakistan became the basis for conceptualizing the current research. It attempts to develop a measure for screening mothers for PNBs based on the indigenous expression and manifestation of PNBs in the Pakistani context. Semi-structured interviews elicited a list of 27 items from 10 mothers experiencing PNBs and 25 relevant experts. The final list of 21 items, empirically validated by six pertinent experts and piloted on 15 mothers, was further administered to a purposive sample of Pakistani mothers diagnosed with PNBs (N= 88). The known-group validity and cut-off score of the Postnatal Blues Screening Scale (PNBSS) were established through Cohen’s d and Receiver Operating Curve (N= 107), respectively. PNBSS resulted in four factors, namely rudimentary blues, over sensitivity, emotional dysregulation, and somatic and cognitive disquietude with significant known-group validity (effect size = 0.9 -1.1); ROC curve (AUC= 0.853). The participants could not be isolated from their families for stage III assessment, which increases the likelihood of response bias. PNBSS has promising psychometric robustness for both clinical and research purposes. Being the first indigenous scale, PNBSS can serve as a foundation for the psychological assessment regime for Pakistani postnatal mothers and the benchmark for future research.