THE RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY OF THE BETHLEM MOTHER-INFANT INTERACTIONSCALE

Background. The Bethlem Scale was designed as a validated measure of m other-infant adjustment in mother-baby units. Method. A multi-centre t rial was conducted to investigate aspects of the reliability, validity and clinical usefulness of the Bethlem Mother-infant Interaction Scal e within five in-patient psychiatric mother-baby units. Results. This revealed good inter-rater. test-retest and inter-item reliability. Cor relations of the scale items with psychiatrist's ratings and changes i n scoring over time suggest reasonable validity. despite some design p roblems with individual items. Conclusion. Mother-infant interaction s cales may have an important role in improving the quality of care for mothers and their babies in the psychiatric setting. The development o f a more extensive scale, the Monash Mother-infant Interaction Scale. is discussed.