• Validated the Japanese MDQ in 1,739 perinatal women with 52-week follow-up. • EFA and CFA supported a two-factor model of the MDQ. • Longitudinal measurement invariance confirmed across four time points. • MDQ showed good reliability and convergent validity with depression/anxiety. • Supports use of the MDQ for bipolar screening in perinatal women. The Mood Disorder Questionnaire (MDQ) is widely used to screen for bipolar disorder (BD), yet its psychometric properties remain underexplored in perinatal populations. This longitudinal study recruited 1,739 pregnant women in Japan, with 768 completing follow-up assessments at 4, 26, and 52 weeks postpartum. Participants completed the MDQ, Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), and the Cross-Cutting Symptom Measure (CCSM) hypomania domain at each time point. Exploratory factor analysis suggested a three-factor solution, whereas confirmatory factor analysis supported a refined two-factor model of Activation/Impulsivity (F1) and Irritability/Distractibility (F2), explaining 40.6% of the variance with good model fit (CFI=0.95, RMSEA=0.04). Longitudinal measurement invariance was supported from configural through scalar levels, allowing valid comparisons of latent means. F1 symptoms showed a modest but significant postpartum increase, while F2 remained stable. Convergent validity analyses indicated stronger associations of F1 with hypomanic symptoms and of F2 with depressive and anxiety symptoms. These findings demonstrate that the Japanese MDQ has adequate psychometric properties and longitudinal validity in perinatal women, supporting its use as a reliable screening tool for bipolar spectrum symptoms in clinical and research settings.
Kubota et al. (Fri,) studied this question.