Development and Psychometric Tests of Midwife-Mother Relationship Scale (MMRS) in Delivery Room

Midwives have different aspects of responsibility in terms of the normal and high-risk pregnancy in delivery room. Thus, this study aimed to develop a scale for evaluating the midwife- mother relationship in delivery room. This study was conducted from August 2014 and October 2015 in Arak, Iran. The present mixed-methods sequential exploratory (quantitative-qualitative) study used the content analysis method to design an initial Scale through a review of the literature. The validity of the Scale was ensured by assessing the face validity, content validity and construct validity (exploratory factor analysis with 480 mothers who hospitalized at post-partum ward in hospitals of Arak province), and its reliability was ensured by assessing its internal consistency (using Cronbach’s alpha) and by assessing its stability through the test-retest method. The qualitative stage of the study resulted in a 71-item Scale with four domains. Those with impact item index over 1.5, CVR over 0.42, and CVI over 0.79 were considered as valid; while the rest were eliminated resulting in a 48-item scale. After Performing the content and face analysis, a factor analysis was performed on 48 items of the scale, yielding a 43-item questionnaire with four domains, including “outcome”, “expectations” “effective factors on care” and “therapeutic alliance” which explained 60.4% of the variance. The reliability of the scale was confirmed with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.93 and its stability was confirmed by an Interclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) of 0.90. MMRS was a valid and reliable instrument for measuring midwife- mother relationship in delivery room. It is easy to use scale and contains the most significant features of midwife-mother relationship.