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The development of an instrument to assess women’s attitudes to mode of delivery

University of British Columbia

The purpose of this study was to develop and test an instrument that would reliably measure women's attitudes towards mode of delivery. The technique chosen for attitude measurement was a semantic differential. Cesarean and vaginal deliveries were rated using bipolar adjectives separated by a seven point scale. The adjectival pairs represented four factors; evaluation, potency, activity and anxiety-stress. The instrument was completed by 202 women who were attending prenatal classes in the Greater Vancouver area. Analysis indicated that Cesarean delivery and vaginal delivery occupy separate positions in a semantic space. This is reflective of differences in women's attitudes towards the two modes of delivery. Multiple regression analysis revealed that the factors evaluation and anxiety-stress are the most relevant predictors of women's attitudes towards mode of delivery; they accounted for at least 94 percent of the variance of the scores for each mode. The reliability of the factors evaluation and anxiety-stress for both Cesarean delivery and vaginal delivery was substantial. Concurrent validity of the Cesarean delivery category was indicated and the instrument is considered to have content validity. A semantic differential technique was useful in measuring women's attitudes towards Cesarean delivery and vaginal delivery. Further refinement of the instrument could yield an efficient and reliable assessment measure.

Text

2010-03-13

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/21872

Nursing

University of British Columbia

Graduate