Developing an awareness scale on the effects of climate change on maternal fetal health

.Climate change is the biggest health problem of the 21st century and threatens the society we live in from all aspects. Pregnant women and newborns are now recognized as more vulnerable groups in the context of climate change. In order to reduce the negative effects of climate change on maternal and fetal health, international professional organizations should work in cooperation, be more sensitive to climate change and be encouraged to develop adaptation policies. Steps to raising awareness about the consequences of climate change on maternal and child health and future generations are the first step in adaptation. This study was planned and applied in a methodological type to develop a measurement tool to measure the awareness levels of pregnant women about the effects of climate change on maternal-fetal health and to determine the validity and reliability of the developed scale. Research population is the pregnant women who applied to the Gynecology Service and Pregnancy School in Adana City Hospital. The sample consists of pregnant women who volunteered to participate in the study (n=500). "Descriptive Information Form" was used to collect the research data. The research was carried out with a total of 500 pregnant women through face-to-face interviews. Many studies in the literature were examined by the researchers, and the "Pregnant Awareness Scale for the Effects of Climate Change on Maternal Fetal Health Pregnant consisting of 3 different sub-dimensions as "General", "Maternal" and "Fetal" developed. The draft scale, which consisted of 36 items when it was first developed, took its final form with 21 items as a result of the necessary validity and reliability studies. The findings were evaluated using IBM SPSS Statistics 22 and Mplus 7 programs. In the validity and reliability study of the "Pregnant Awareness Scale for the Effects of Climate Change on Maternal Fetal Health", content validity rates were found to be between 0,84 and 0,92 at the item level, after content validity analysis. The scale consists of 3 sub dimensions as "General", "Maternal" and "Fetal". The total internal consistency of Cronbach's Alpha coefficient of the 21-item scale was 0,946, and the Cronbach's alpha values of the sub-dimensions were 0,871 for the "General" sub-dimension, 0,924 for the "Fetal" sub-dimension, and 0,907 for the "Maternal" sub-dimension. In line with these data; It has been determined that "Pregnant Awareness Scale for the Effects of Climate Change on Maternal Fetal Health Pregnant" is a valid and reliable scale.