Department of Reproductive Health and Midwifery, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Department of Management, Macquarie Business School, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia.
BMC Womens Health. 2021 Dec 20;21(1):424. doi: 10.1186/s12905-021-01566-0.
There is a considerable dearth of official metrics for women empowerment, which is pivotal to observe universal progress towards Sustainable Development Goals 5, targeting "achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls." This study aimed to introduce, critically appraise, and summarize the measurement properties of women empowerment scales in sexual and reproductive health.
A comprehensive systematic literature search through several international electronic databases, including PubMed, Scopus, Embase, ProQuest, and Science Direct was performed on September 2020, without a time limit. All studies aimed to develop and validate a measurement of women empowerment in sexual and reproductive health were included. The quality assessment was performed through a rating scale addressing the six criteria, including: a priori explicit theoretical framework, evaluating content validity, internal consistency, and factor analysis to assess structural validity.
Of 5234 identified studies, fifteen were included. The majority of the studies were conducted in the United States. All studies but one used a standardized measure. Total items of each scale ranged from 8 to 23. The most common domains investigated were decision-making, freedom of coercion, and communication with the partner. Four studies did not use any conceptual framework. The individual agency followed by immediate relational agency were the main focus of included studies. Of the included studies, seven applied either literature review, expert panels, or empirical methods to develop the item pool. Cronbach's alpha coefficient reported in nine studies ranged from α = 0.56 to 0.87. Most of the studies but three lack reporting test-retest reliability ranging r = 0.69-0.87. Nine studies proved content validity. Six criteria were applied to scoring the scales, by which nine of fifteen articles were rated as medium quality, two rated as poor quality, and four rated as high quality.
Most scales assessed various types of validity and Internal consistency for the reliability. Applying a theoretical framework, more rigorous validation of scales, and assessing the various dimensions of women empowerment in diverse contexts and different levels, namely structural agency, are needed to develop effective and representing scales.
目前缺乏衡量妇女赋权的官方指标，而这对于观察实现可持续发展目标 5（实现性别平等，增强所有妇女和女童权能）的普遍进展至关重要。本研究旨在介绍、批判性评价并总结性与生殖健康领域中衡量妇女赋权的量表的测量特性。
2020 年 9 月，我们通过包括 PubMed、Scopus、Embase、ProQuest 和 Science Direct 在内的多个国际电子数据库进行了全面的系统文献检索，没有时间限制。所有旨在开发和验证性与生殖健康领域中妇女赋权衡量工具的研究均被纳入。通过一个评估六个标准的评分量表来进行质量评价，这六个标准包括：明确的理论框架、内容有效性评估、内部一致性以及评估结构有效性的因子分析。
在 5234 项已确定的研究中，有 15 项被纳入。大多数研究在美国进行。所有研究除一项外均使用标准化测量工具。每个量表的总项目数从 8 到 23 不等。研究中最常调查的领域包括决策制定、免受强迫的自由以及与伴侣的沟通。四项研究未使用任何概念框架。个体能动性以及直接关系能动性是纳入研究的主要关注点。在纳入的研究中，有 7 项研究应用文献综述、专家小组或实证方法来开发项目池。有 9 项研究报告了九个研究的克朗巴赫 α 系数，范围为 0.56 至 0.87。除三项研究外，大多数研究缺乏报告重测信度，范围为 r=0.69-0.87。有 9 项研究证明了内容有效性。有 6 个标准适用于评分量表，其中 15 篇文章中有 9 篇被评为中等质量，2 篇被评为低质量，4 篇被评为高质量。
大多数量表评估了各种类型的有效性和可靠性的内部一致性。需要应用理论框架、更严格地验证量表以及在不同背景和不同层次上评估妇女赋权的各个维度，包括结构能动性，以开发有效且具有代表性的量表。
