Researchers measured for underweight,
normal weight (reference group), overweight, and obesity at 7 and 8 years of age defined by using international
cutoff points of body mass index by sex and age.
This
cutoff point corresponds to 80th percentile scores for community samples and has a 95 % sensitivity for diagnosing major depressive disorder (MDD) among low - income women, although the specificity and positive predictive value for MDD are low (70 % and 0.28, respectively).29, 30 The
cutoff point of 16 has been used by many investigators assessing depressive symptoms in a variety of cohorts, including pregnant women.28 — 33 When studying depressive symptoms during pregnancy, some investigators chose to use a higher CES - D
cutoff point (eg, the 90th percentile) to account for the possibility that symptoms of
normal pregnancy may overlap with symptoms of depression.9, 18 There is no evidence that this approach is more accurate or preferable to using the
cutoff point of 16, and the use of higher
cutoff points increases specificity but decreases sensitivity for MDD.28 We used a consistent
cutoff point of 16 to define depressive symptoms before and after parturition.