| Description |
The purpose of this study was the initial development of a valid, reliable, general instrument to assess women's perceptions of their labor and delivery experience. The instrument was designed around four domains: (1) Persons - professional caregivers, support persons; (2) Treatments - routine treatments, special procedures, (3) Environment, and (4) Effect on Self - self-control, expectations, and self-esteem. The process of tool development included generating items from the literature for test construction, content validation by a panel of experts, pretesting the instrument on a sample of 10 postpartum women, administration of the edited instrument to 79 postpartum women at a Salt Lake City hospital, and the establishment of initial sample reliability. This process led to a final instrument containing 24 items within five new domains identified by factor analysis. The scales in the final questionnaire and their alpha coefficients are (1) Self-Acceptance Scale, 8 items with alpha .88; (2) Self-Control Relating to Pain and Discomfort Scale, 6 items with alpha .77; (3) Dissatisfaction Scale, 3 items with alpha .74; (4) Response to the Treatment System Scale, 5 items with alpha .70; and (5) Conditions Under Which Care is Given Scale, 4 items with alpha .61. Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlations and t-tests for independent samples were also obtained. The result of this research is a tool appropriate for use in a variety of settings for assessment of intrapartum services. Further refinement of the instrument will include the addition of items to several scales, testing the instrument on a larger sample population, and conducting reliability studies on the results of the data. The reliabilities of these scales range from.88 to.61. The result of this research is a tool appropriate for use in a variety of settings for assessment of intrapartum services. |
