The development of a maternal satisfaction scale for caesarean section

Satisfaction has become an important outcome measure. The purpose of this s tudy was to develop a valid, reliable maternal satisfaction scale for women undergoing caesarean section. After Research Ethics Board approval, each p atient gave verbal consent. To ensure face validity, patients were intervie wed before and after caesarean section. Interviewing until no new items wer e generated ensured content validity. A draft scale using a 7 point Likert scale was given to 115 patients. Items endorsed by less than 15% of patient s were deleted. Item-total correlations, principal component and factor ana lysis were performed and items in factors with less than three items or com plex loadings excluded. Correlating the new scale to a Visual Analogue Scal e (VAS) for satisfaction assessed construct validity. Reliability, as measu red by internal consistency, was tested using Cronbach's alpha. Twenty-five women were interviewed for item generation. Patients were both nulliparous and multiparous and all received regional anaesthesia for elective or non- emergent caesarean section. Six items of the 33 on the draft scale were exc luded because of lack of endorsement. Five items were excluded after princi pal component and factor analysis and two after item-total correlations. Th e correlation between the scale total and the VAS was 0.48, Cronbach's alph a was 0.82 for the total scale. Maternal sense of control was the item most related to satisfaction. This scale provides more detailed information tha n a simple VAS, In the population studied, this tool was found to be a vali d and reliable method for assessing maternal satisfaction in women undergoi ng nonemergent caesarean section.