Development and psychometric properties of the Birth Satisfaction Scale-Revised (BSS-R).

OBJECTIVE

to assess factor structure, validity and reliability of the Birth Satisfaction Scale (BSS) and to develop a short-form version of the tool.

DESIGN

a quantitative design focused on evaluating psychometric properties of the BSS using factor structure, internal consistency, divergent reliability and known groups validity.

SETTING

Ayrshire Maternity Unit community midwife bases that serve the obstetric population of Ayrshire, Scotland (UK).

PARTICIPANTS

a convenience sample of healthy women (n=228) <10 days post partum who had delivered a term infant. Data was collected from October 2010 to January 2011.

MEASUREMENT

the BSS contains 30 self report items, rated on a 5-point Likert scale that measure women's perceptions of: (1) quality of care provision, (2) women's personal attributes, and (3) stress experienced during labour (8, 8 and 14 items per factor).

FINDINGS

post data analysis the BSS was reconfigured into the 10 item BSS-Revised (BSS-R) comprised of three sub-scales that measure distinct but correlated domains of: (1) quality of care provision, (2) women's personal attributes, and (3) stress experienced during labour. These domains now consist of relatively few items (4, 2 and 4 items per factor), but offer a good fit to the data.

KEY CONCLUSIONS

the BSS-R would appear to be a robust, valid and reliable multidimensional psychometric instrument for measuring postnatal women's birth satisfaction. Further research to confirm the veracity of the instruments measurement properties highlighted in the current study is desirable. The BSS-R is available for use at a national/international level from the first author.