Department of Women & Children's Health, School of Life Course Sciences, King's College London, London, UK.
Department of Psychology, Institute of Population Health, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK.
BMC Pregnancy Childbirth. 2021 Feb 8;21(1):112. doi: 10.1186/s12884-021-03597-9.
Global crises inevitably increase levels of anxiety in postpartum populations. Effective and efficient measurement is therefore essential. This study aimed to create a 12-item research short form of the 51-item Postpartum Specific Anxiety Scale [PSAS] and validate it for use in rapid response research at a time of global crises [PSAS-RSF-C]. We also present the same 12-items, in five other languages (Italian, French, Chinese, Spanish, Dutch) to increase global accessibility of a psychometric tool to assess maternal mental health.
Twelve items from the PSAS were selected on the basis of a review of their factor loadings. An on-line sample of UK mothers (N = 710) of infants up to 12 weeks old completed the PSAS-RSF-C during COVID-19 'lockdown'.
Principal component analyses on a randomly split sample (n = 344) revealed four factors, identical in nature to the original PSAS, which in combination explained 75% of the total variance. Confirmatory factor analyses (n = 366) demonstrated the four-factor model fit the data well. Reliability of the overall scale and of the underlying factors in both samples proved excellent.
Findings suggest the PSAS-RSF-C may prove useful as a clinical screening tool and is the first postpartum-specific psychometric scale to be validated during the COVID-19 pandemic. This offers psychometrically sound assessment of postpartum anxiety. By increasing the accessibility of the PSAS, we aim to enable researchers the opportunity to measure maternal anxiety, rapidly, at times of global crisis.
全球性危机不可避免地会增加产后人群的焦虑水平。因此，有效的测量方法至关重要。本研究旨在创建一个包含 51 个项目的产后特定焦虑量表（PSAS）的 12 项研究简短形式，并在全球危机时对其进行快速反应研究进行验证[PSAS-RSF-C]。我们还提供了相同的 12 项，用其他五种语言（意大利语、法语、中文、西班牙语、荷兰语）呈现，以增加评估产妇心理健康的心理测量工具的全球可及性。
根据其因子负荷的回顾，从 PSAS 中选择了 12 个项目。在 COVID-19“封锁”期间，一个由 710 名英国母亲组成的在线婴儿样本（年龄在 12 周以下）完成了 PSAS-RSF-C。
在随机分组样本（n=344）上进行的主成分分析显示出四个因子，其性质与原始 PSAS 相同，这四个因子共同解释了总方差的 75%。在 366 名样本中进行的验证性因子分析表明，四因子模型很好地拟合了数据。两个样本中整个量表和潜在因子的可靠性都非常出色。
研究结果表明，PSAS-RSF-C 可能作为一种临床筛查工具很有用，并且是在 COVID-19 大流行期间验证的第一个产后特定心理测量量表。这提供了产后焦虑的可靠评估。通过增加 PSAS 的可及性，我们旨在为研究人员提供机会，在全球危机时快速测量产妇焦虑。
