Development and Validation of a Questionnaire for Measuring Maternal, Nutritional, and Infant-Related Attitudes and Behaviours of Iranian Mothers in the Postpartum Period

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) report, 8 million maternal deaths occur in the perinatal period every year, 98% of which are seen in developing countries. In Iran, the prevalence of stillbirth is 9.19 per 1000 live births. It is possible to improve the health behaviors of mothers by education, increasing knowledge and modifying attitudes. The present study aims to develop and determine the psychometric characteristics of a questionnaire for measuring the health-related attitudes and behaviors of Iranian mothers in the postpartum period.

This is a study with exploratory sequential design which was conducted using both qualitative and quantitative methods on 200 pregnant mothers referred to health centers in Qom, Iran. In the qualitative phase, the items were formulated based on the literature. Psychometric study of the questionnaire were done using face validity, content validity (using two indicators of CVR and CVI), factor structure (using exploratory factor analysis) and reliability (internal consistency and test-retest reliability).

In the validity assessment stage, 5 items were removed from 61 items based on the opinions of 10 experts. After assessing content validity and reliability, 56 questions were confirmed. The Cronbach’s alpha for the whole questionnaire was obtained 0.84 ​​and the Pearson correlation coefficient was reported 0.86.

The designed tool with 56 items and 6 subscales has acceptable validity, reliability and factor structure for measuring Iranian mothers’ health-related, nutritional, and infant-related attitudes and behaviors in the postpartum period.