Stocky A J, Tonge B J, Nunn R J
Department of Adult Psychiatry, Monash Medical Centre, Clayton, Victoria, Australia.
Br J Psychiatry. 1996 Jul;169(1):27-9. doi: 10.1192/bjp.169.1.27.
The Bethlem Scale was designed as a validated measure of mother-infant adjustment in mother-baby units.
A multi-centre trial was conducted to investigate aspects of the reliability, validity and clinical usefulness of the Bethlem Mother-infant Interaction Scale within five in-patient psychiatric mother-baby units.
This revealed good inter-rater, test-retest and inter-item reliability. Correlations of the scale items with psychiatrist's ratings and changes in scoring over time suggest reasonable validity, despite some design problems with individual items.
Mother-infant interaction scales may have an important role in improving the quality of care for mothers and their babies in the psychiatric setting. The development of a more extensive scale, the Monash Mother-Infant interaction Scale, is discussed.
