BACKGROUND: Anxiety and depressive disorders in women are among the most common in the perinatal period. Timely detection of anxiety symptoms specific to the perinatal period is important for providing the necessary comprehensive psychological and medical care to women. This study assesses the validity and reliability of the Russian version of the Perinatal Anxiety Screening Scale (PASS-R).METHODS: A step-by-step translation of the scale into Russian was carried out. The study involved 609 pregnant women who answered questions in the following scales: PASS, Beck Depression Inventory II, Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale, Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and the Clinical Questionnaire for the Identification and Assessment of Neurotic Conditions. Content validity, factor analysis and internal consistency were assessed.RESULTS: The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin criterion was found to be 0.93, Bartlett’s Test was found to be significant at P<0.0001 (χ2=8184.421) and Cronbach’s α coefficient for the scale was 0.930. PASS-R also significantly correlated with other measures of depression and anxiety (P<0.001). Analyses revealed that the optimal cut-off of the PASS-R score for detecting anxiety was 26. Principal component analysis and oblique (oblimin) rotation, repeated with Varimax rotation, suggested a six-factor structure addressing the following conditions: 1) acute anxiety and trauma; 2) social anxiety; 3) perfectionism and control; 4) excessive worry and specific fears; 5) adjustment (dissociation); and 6) generalized anxiety.CONCLUSIONS: The Russian version of PASS showed reasonably adequate validity and reliability and can be used to screen for anxiety disorder among women in the perinatal period.