Title |
Development of a questionnaire for assessing the childbirth experience (QACE)
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Published in |
BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, August 2017
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DOI | 10.1186/s12884-017-1462-x |
Pubmed ID | |
Authors |
Pierre Carquillat, Françoise Vendittelli, Thomas Perneger, Marie-Julia Guittier |
Abstract |
Due to its potential impact on women's psychological health, assessing perceptions of their childbirth experience is important. The aim of this study was to develop a multidimensional self-reporting questionnaire to evaluate the childbirth experience. Factors influencing the childbirth experience were identified from a literature review and the results of a previous qualitative study. A total of 25 items were combined from existing instruments or were created de novo. A draft version was pilot tested for face validity with 30 women and submitted for evaluation of its construct validity to 477 primiparous women at one-month post-partum. The recruitment took place in two obstetric clinics from Swiss and French university hospitals. To evaluate the content validity, we compared item responses to general childbirth experience assessments on a numeric, 0 to 10 rating scale. We dichotomized two group assessment scores: "0 to 7" and "8 to 10". We performed an exploratory factor analysis to identify underlying dimensions. In total, 291 women completed the questionnaire (response rate = 61%). The responses to 22 items were statistically significant between the 0 to 7 and 8 to 10 groups for the general childbirth experience assessments. An exploratory factor analysis yielded four sub-scales, which were labelled "relationship with staff" (4 items), "emotional status" (3 items), "first moments with the new born," (3 items) and "feelings at one month postpartum" (3 items). All 4 scales had satisfactory internal consistency levels (alpha coefficients from 0.70 to 0.85). The full 25-item version can be used to analyse each item by itself, and the short 4-dimension version can be scored to summarize the general assessment of the childbirth experience. The Questionnaire for Assessing the Childbirth Experience (QACE) could be useful as a screening instrument to identify women with negative childbirth experiences. It can be used as both a research instrument in its short version and a questionnaire for use in clinical practice in its full version. |
Mendeley readers
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Unknown | 110 | 100% |
Demographic breakdown
Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
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Student > Ph. D. Student | 17 | 15% |
Student > Master | 16 | 15% |
Student > Bachelor | 10 | 9% |
Student > Doctoral Student | 9 | 8% |
Student > Postgraduate | 8 | 7% |
Other | 19 | 17% |
Unknown | 31 | 28% |
Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Medicine and Dentistry | 23 | 21% |
Nursing and Health Professions | 21 | 19% |
Psychology | 15 | 14% |
Social Sciences | 6 | 5% |
Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 2 | 2% |
Other | 9 | 8% |
Unknown | 34 | 31% |