Supported by the Health and Medical Research Fund (HMRF) of the Health Bureau of the HKSAR Government, Prof. Jessie LIN, Member of the Mental Health Research Centre (MHRC) and Assistant Professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, and her team have developed a mobile application called “MotherCare” to facilitate the early detection of perinatal depression through ecological momentary assessment (EMA).
Perinatal depression (PND) is a serious mental health condition that can significantly affect both mothers and their infants. Early detection is essential to preventing adverse outcomes. In Hong Kong, current screening practices rely on manual assessments using the paper-based Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), administered at three timepoints from pregnancy to six weeks postpartum. However, these screenings are limited by the infrequent intervals as well as resource constraints, often resulting in underdiagnosis of PND.
To address these challenges, Prof. Lin’s team collected both EMA and EPDS responses from over 120 women throughout the prenatal and postnatal periods to evaluate the feasibility and validity of mobile-based EMA for perinatal depression screening. Their findings indicated that EMA is comparable to the traditional paper-based questionnaire in identifying individuals at risk of PND, highlighting the potential of the new approach as a scalable tool for dynamic, real-time monitoring. This research suggests that mobile-based EMA could serve as an effective supplement or alternative to current screening methods, with significant implications for early identification of and intervention in perinatal mental health issues.
