{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"institution":[{"name":"medRxiv"}],"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,12]],"date-time":"2026-10-12T02:45:43Z","timestamp":1791773143079,"version":"4.3.4"},"posted":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,6]]},"group-title":"Psychiatry and Clinical Psychology","reference-count":34,"publisher":"openRxiv","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,6]],"date-time":"2026-03-06T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1772755200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.medrxiv.org\/about\/FAQ#license"}],"funder":[{"award":["R01HD108619"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["R01HD108619"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/04byxyr05","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"award":["R21HD100817"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["R21HD100817"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/04byxyr05","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"award":["R21HD109546"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["R21HD109546"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/04byxyr05","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"accepted":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,7]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title>\n                <jats:p>Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after traumatic childbirth is a serious maternal morbidity that affects about 20% of women following medically complicated deliveries. Yet it often goes undetected in perinatal care, in part because brief screening tools suitable for busy obstetric settings are lacking. We developed and evaluated a brief screener derived from the 20-item PTSD Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5) to detect childbirth-related PTSD. Women with traumatic childbirth experiences completed the PCL-5 and the gold-standard Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale for DSM-5 (CAPS-5); depression symptoms were assessed with the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS). Bootstrap resampling with LASSO regression identified the PCL-5 items most strongly associated with PTSD, and Firth logistic regression was used to estimate diagnostic accuracy. A statistically derived 6-item version of the PCL-5 (PCL-5-R6) showed excellent discrimination against clinician diagnosis (AUC = 0.95; 95% CI, 0.89\u20131.00). A cut-off score of 7 yielded high sensitivity (0.96) and good specificity (0.83), with overall diagnostic efficiency of 0.86. The PCL-5-R6 correlated only moderately with EPDS scores (\u03c1 = 0.53), indicating that depression screening alone does not reliably detect PTSD. This brief tool can offer a valid and practical approach for routine postpartum PTSD screening.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.64898\/2026.03.05.26347629","type":"posted-content","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,6]],"date-time":"2026-03-06T19:00:23Z","timestamp":1772823623000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["A 6-Item Diagnostic Screener for Childbirth-Related PTSD"],"prefix":"10.64898","author":[{"given":"Alon","family":"Bartal","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Business Administration, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Tal","family":"Elhasid Felsenstein","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Postpartum Traumatic Stress Disorders Research Program, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts"},{"name":"Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8737-3077","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Hadas","family":"Allouche-Kam","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Postpartum Traumatic Stress Disorders Research Program, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts"},{"name":"Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Elli C.","family":"Dassopoulos","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Postpartum Traumatic Stress Disorders Research Program, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Mary C.","family":"Lee","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Postpartum Traumatic Stress Disorders Research Program, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Andrea G.","family":"Edlow","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts"},{"name":"Vincent Center for Reproductive Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Scott P.","family":"Orr","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts"},{"name":"Division of Neuroscience, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Sharon","family":"Dekel","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Postpartum Traumatic Stress Disorders Research Program, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts"},{"name":"Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"54368","reference":[{"key":"2026101119351052000_2026.03.05.26347629v3.1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s00737-019-01006-x"},{"key":"2026101119351052000_2026.03.05.26347629v3.2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s00737-019-00968-2"},{"key":"2026101119351052000_2026.03.05.26347629v3.3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.ajog.2023.09.089"},{"key":"2026101119351052000_2026.03.05.26347629v3.4","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.3389\/fpsyg.2017.00560"},{"key":"2026101119351052000_2026.03.05.26347629v3.5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Hamilton BE, Martin , Joyce A., Osterman , Michelle J K . Vital statistics rapid release births: Provisional data for 2023. Place of publication: 2023. Report no.: https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/nchs\/products\/index.htm.","DOI":"10.15620\/cdc:127052"},{"key":"2026101119351052000_2026.03.05.26347629v3.6","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1001\/jamanetworkopen.2023.17641"},{"key":"2026101119351052000_2026.03.05.26347629v3.7","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/s44220-024-00213-5"},{"key":"2026101119351052000_2026.03.05.26347629v3.8","unstructured":"Isha Hemant Arora BGGW , BS; Salma Mokhtar ; Beatrice Quagliarini , MD; Alon Bartal , PhD; Kathleen M. Jagodnik , PhD; Robert L. Barry , PhD; Andrea G. Edlow , MD, MSc; Scott P. Orr , PhD; Sharon Dekel , PhD, MS, MPhil. Establishing the validity of a diagnostic questionnaire for childbirth-related posttraumatic stress disorder. 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