The study of reliability and validity of the Wijma Delivery Expectancy/Experience Questionnaire of the Version A

The aims of the present study are to translate the Wijma Delivery Expectancy/Experience Questionnaire (W-DEQ) Version A which was developed by Klaas and Barbro Wijma for determining the fear of childbirth into Turkish and to investigate its validity and reliability for Turkish population.A total of 660 healty women with normal pregnancies at gestational ages of between 28 and 40 weeks when attending the routine scan were used in this study. The participants were asked to answer the questionnaires, at Akdeniz University Hospital (n=220), Atatürk State Hospital (n=220), Antalya Research and Education Hospital (n=220) between February 4th- November 27th 2008.Two methods were used for determining the reliability of the W-DEQ: the internal consistency reliability (Cronbach?s ?), and split-half reliability. Both the split-half correlation coefficient (0.90) and the alpha coefficient (0.89) are well above the 0.70 criterion for the split-half reliability and internal consistency reliability. There was no difference in the reliability estimates between the nulliparous and parous groups.Construct validity was also determined utilizing the known-groups method. In this study, independent sample t-tests were used to compare the nulliparous and parous groups differing in known fear status. In order to test the construct of the W-DEQ, BAI, DASS and BMWS scales were chosen as these scales are expected to correlate with the W-DEQ. Analysis of the construct validity of the W-DEQ version A using Pearson?s correlation coefficients was performed for both nulliparous and parous women separately. All the scales in both groups showed a statistically significant correlation with the W-DEQConsequently, Turkish form of Wijma Delivery Expectancy/Experience Questionnaire Version A was fixed as reliable and valid means to measure the level of fear of childbirth among Turkish pregnants. Also it is recommended to apply on different groups that carry out different socio-demographic features and analysis of the validity and reliability of the Turkish version of W-DEQ version A for the oncoming researches.Key Word: Fear of childbirth, Wijma Delivery Expectancy/Experience Questionnaire, validity, reliability