Jt. Condon, THE ASSESSMENT OF ANTENATAL EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT - DEVELOPMENT OF A QUESTIONNAIRE INSTRUMENT, British Journal of Medical Psychology, 66, 1993, pp. 167-183
The nature of the relationship which female and male expectant parents
develop during pregnancy with their unborn baby has both theoretical
and clinical significance. It potentially provides a framework for imp
roved understanding of many aspects of psychosomatic obstetrics, inclu
ding reactions to foetal loss. Existing instruments designed to assess
this relationship inadequately differentiate between attitude to the
foetus per se versus attitude to the pregnancy state or motherhood rol
e. The present paper presents a theoretical model of the subjective ex
periences of human attachment. This is utilized to develop a questionn
aire to assess the antenatal attachment construct. Item analysis resul
ts in a 19-item maternal and 16-item paternal questionnaire with high
levels of internal consistency. Each takes approximately five minutes
to complete. Finally, the factor structures of the resultant questionn
aires are explored.