Measuring stress after childbirth: development and validation of the Maternal Postpartum Stress Scale

ABSTRACT

Background

Due to a wide range of stressors during the first postpartum year, this study aimed to develop and validate a self-report measure of stress intensity specific for postpartum.

Method

Postpartum women (N= 603) completed the Maternal Postpartum Stress Scale in a cross-sectional online study. They also filled out questionnaires on general stress, depression, and anxiety . Factor analysis, reliability, and validity were examined.

Results

Exploratory factor analyses revealed a three-factor structure: Personal needs and fatigue , Infant nurturing , and Body changes and sexuality. The reliability of the total scale and all subscales was good. Significant positive correlation with general stress indicated good convergent validity, and with depression and anxiety good divergent validity. Primiparous mothers had a higher score on the Infant nurturing subscale, and the mothers of infants with health problems had a higher score on the total scale, Personal needs and fatigue, and Infant nurturing.

Conclusion

Maternal Postpartum Stress Scale is a new, valid, and reliable 22-items scale that measures stress during the first postpartum year. The total scale and tree subscales can be calculated separately to provide detailed information about stressors that mothers struggle with. The scale can be used for research and practical purposes.

KEYWORDS:

• Stress
• postnatal
• women
• scale
• validation
• childbirth

Disclosure statement

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

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financed by the project of the Catholic University of Croatia ‘Parental mental health and contextual factors as determinants of parent-infant bonding’, under [Grant HKS-2018-4].