The birth satisfaction scale: Igbo adaptation, validation, and reliability study

Background: An important indicator of mothers' satisfaction with their care is birth satisfaction. Maternal health care can only be deemed to be of good quality if mothers are satisfied with the care they received. This increases maternal joy. A vital tool for understanding the delivery process from the mother's point of view is the Birth Satisfaction Scale - Revised (BSS-R). Nigeria stands to gain from the modification and implementation of BSS-R in terms of improving care, measuring maternal health, and reducing the high prevalence of adverse obstetric outcomes.

Objective: The purpose of this study is to convert the Birth Satisfaction Scale - Revised (BSS-R) into the Igbo language and examine its validity and reliability.

Materials and methods: A study with a cross-sectional design was conducted on 500 women who gave birth at the Alex Ekwueme Federal University Teaching hospital in Abakaliki between March 1 and August 31, 2019. In the postnatal ward, data were gathered using the BSS-R questionnaire. SPSS version 20 was used to analyze the collected data. Through validation and reliability analyses, the scale's characteristics were examined. P-values less than 0.05 indicate a significant level.

Results: The mean age of the women was 28.8 ± 4.7 years; the majority (230, 46.0%) were between the age group of 30-40 years. Three-fifth of the study participants had formal education. The majority (460, 92.0%) were multipara and had delivered mostly (326, 65.2%) at Full Term. Three Component loading were identified in the Scale. Examination of the pattern matrix showed three components/themes: support by staff during labour (I felt well supported by staff during my labour and birth (r = 0.875); parturient confidence during labour (I felt out of control during my birth experience (r = 0.714) and distraught during labour (I was not distressed at all during labour (r = 0.821). Communality value (r²) mostly ranged between 0.507 and 0.801. The scale had a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.62. This increased to 0.70 following removal of "I was not distressed at all during labour" responses from the analysis.

Conclusion: The Igbo version of BSS-R has good internal consistency. It is a valid and a reliable scale to be employed in assessing maternal satisfaction among Igbo speaking women in the study area and Nigeria in general.