Evaluation of psychometric properties of Persian version of Birth Satisfaction Scale

Authors: Fatemeh Rahimi-Kian , Shelir Mohammadi3*, Elham Ebrahimi, Shima Haghani

Introduction: Birth satisfaction can directly effect on the health and well-being of the mother and her newborn, as well as the choice of a future delivery. As the importance of satisfaction measurement, the aim of this study was assessing the psychometric properties of the Iranian version of the Hollins and Fleming childbirth satisfaction scale.

Material and Methods: This study designed based on a methodological design. After translating the scale and confirming its initial validity, the questionnaires were distributed among women with uncomplicated pregnancies. The participants who had given normal vaginal delivery at hospitals under the state of healthy, full-term, singletons (with cephalic presentation) pregnancy selected could enter to the study during the first 10 days of their delivery. Cronbach’s alpha and test-retest were applied to analyze the internal consistency and reliability of the scale. Moreover, the face, content and construct validity of the scale was checked with accounting the impact score, CVR and CVI, exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis, respectively.

Results: The present instrument consists of three subscales involved “Quality of care provision”, Women’s personal attributes and Stress experienced during labor. Given that all of item scores receive to the predefined amount, none of them were eliminated and the 30-item questionnaire entered to the factor analysis process. The amount of KMO was 0.94 that was higher than cut of point (0.9). It means that the data were suitable for factor analysis. Also the result of Bartlett test was significant. (P<0.001). Consistency of the total scale was good with Cronbach alpha coefficient 0.87, and Interclass Correlation Coefficient 0.86. During the concerning the cumulative percent of the variance, the 3 factors determined 50.4% of the total variance.

Conclusions: The study findings indicated that the Persian version of Hollins and Fleming birth satisfaction questionnaire is a reliable and valid instrument. This scale can show the level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction of mothers with childbirth services. Moreover, this scale, by showing the differences between “what is” and “what should be,” can gather feedback from mothers to tailor healthcare services to their expectations and promote their satisfaction.

Keywords: Birth Satisfaction, Childbirth, Psychometry, Factor analysis