Perinatal Assessment of Paternal Affectivity (PAPA): preliminary report on a new screening tool.

During the perinatal period affective alterations in fathers, like Paternal Perinatal Depression, are very frequent, but occur differently than in women (Tuszyńska-Bogucka, & Nawra, 2014; Edward et al. 2015). In particular, depressive symptoms in fathers tend to be less severe, less definite, and often occur in comorbidity with anxiety disorders, alteration of illness behavior and behavioral acting outs like addictions or anger attacks. As a consequence of their indefinite clinical features, these problems are often under-assessed or undiagnosed (Musser et al. 2013). The Perinatal Assessment of Paternal Affectivity (PAPA) is a new questionnaire for the screening of high-risk fathers during the perinatal period. It is based on recent research on perinatal affective disorders and is the first instrument to assess these problems in fathers through many different dimensions: Anxiety, Depression, Hostility, Perceived stress, Relational difficulties, Somatic complaints, Dangerous behavior (driving, sport, at work), Addictions (smoking, alcohol, drugs, internet, gambling) and physiological alteration (sleep, eating). It is fast and simple to administer (one page, five minutes), and ethnic and socio-cultural influences are considered. In this pilot study a sample of 50 Italian fathers assessed during a gynecological consultation at the 8th month of pregnancy of their companion were considered. Besides the PAPA, all subjects were given the following questionnaires: CES-D, EPDS, SCL-90-R, Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS). The preliminary data analysis shows a significant association (p = .01) between the scales of Depression, Anxiety, Somatic complaints and Stress perception of the PAPA with the relative scales of CES-D, EPDS, SCL-90-R and PSS. The PAPA is a screening tool, and its goal is not an accurate diagnosis, but it provides a simple and practical guide for detecting fathers at high-risk of perinatal affective alteration, in order to foster a more in-depth diagnostic assessment, and a possible treatment.