A strategy to rescue mothers from isolated parenting: Development of the “social connectivity of mother with people in the community scale”

A mother’s social connectivity is important for preventing isolated parenting, encourages mothers to get a social support, and is also important for preventing child maltreatment. The purpose of this study was to develop a scale to measure social connectivity between mothers with small children and people in the community who they meet via parenting. Scale development was carried out in two phases: Phase I involved determining factors that form the basis for the scale using exploratory factor analysis with data of 724 mothers with babies or small children. Phase II used data from 525 mothers from a different population group to that of Phase I. The subjects for both Phase I and Phase II were recruited within Japan. To verify the scales’ reliability, a confidence coefficient was calculated, and a confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to check reproducibility. To verify the scale’s validity, testing was carried out using a comparison with external criteria. The scale consisted of 4 factors and 17 items from PhaseⅠ. In Phase II analysis, Cronbach’s α for the scale was 0.84; GFI, an indicator of degree of the model’s conformance, was 0.92. These results were similar to those in Phase I, thus confirming the reliability of the scale. In terms of the relationship with external criteria, the results supported our hypothesis. The developed scale can be used as a preventive tool to identify mothers at risk of becoming isolated and will contribute to the prevention of child maltreatment.