The Chichewa Wijma delivery expectancy/experience questionnaire: a factor analytic study for postpartum women in Malawi

Abstract

Objective

To test the validity and reliability of the Chichewa Wijma Delivery Expectancy/Experience Questionnaire (W-DEQ) in Malawian postpartum women.

Methods

A cross-sectional study of postnatal women (N= 415) at 1 day after vaginal birth was conducted at a district hospital in Malawi. The W-DEQ, Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale and the World Health Organization Quality of Life Scale were used to measure fear of birth (FOB), depressive symptoms and quality of life (QoL). Principal component analysis (PCA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), Cronbach’s alpha, the average variance extracted (AVE) and the composite reliability (CR) and Pearson correlation were used to test the construct validity, reliability, convergent and divergent validity of the Chichewa W-DEQ (CW-DEQ).

Results

The participants had a mean age of 28.3 ± 6.7 years. A multidimensional structure containing three factors – a lack of positive feelings, fear and concerns about childbirth – with an appropriate model fit was reported for the CW-DEQ version. The Cronbach’s α of the CW-DEQ was 0.87. The AVE and CR values were highly acceptable in lack of positive feelings – 0.17 (0.68), and concerns about childbirth – 0.79 (0.88) factors which proved the convergent validity of each; however, was marginally acceptable in the fear factor – 0.14 (0.53). Low range of correlations between the CW-DEQ constructs (r = 0.27 ∼ 0.42, p < .001), confirmed the divergent validity.

Conclusions

In this study, we found the CW-DEQ to be a reliable and valid tool for assessing FOB in postpartum women.

Keywords:

• Fear of birth
• Wijma delivery experience questionnaire
• postpartum
• principal component analysis
• confirmatory factor analysis
• Malawi

Acknowledgments

The authors thankful to all women who participated in this study and everyone who helped to make this work a success. We also recognize Grace G. Chen for providing editorial assistance.

Author contributions

Conceptualization: MK, SK; Methodology: MK, SK; Formal analysis and investigation: MK, SK, HH; Writing - original draft preparation: MK, SK; Writing - review and editing: MK, RC, KWG, SK; Supervision: SK. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan.