Eva Vachková*, Jiří Mareš*, Stanislav Ježek**
* Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Medicine in Hradec Králové, Department of Social Medicine
** Masaryk University in Brno, Faculty of Social Studies, Institute for Research on Children, Youth and Families
Vachková, E. – Mareš, J. – Ježek, S. Quality of life of pregnant women: psychometric characteristics of a new specific questionnaire. In Ošetrovateľstvo: teória, výskum, vzdelávanie [online], 2014, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 71-77. Available on: https://www.osetrovatelstvo.eu/en/archive/2014-volome-4/number-2/quality-of-life-of-pregnant-women-psychometric-characteristics-of-a-new-specific-questionnaire.
Aim: The study tries to answer the question: How to evaluate the quality of life of physiologically pregnant women? The main objective was to evaluate psychometric characteristics of newly developed specific questionnaire and determine if it is sufficiently sensitive for screening assessment of the quality of life of women with normal pregnancy.
Methods: We used two questionnaires: a new specific questionnaire QOL-GRAV and a Czech version of the generic WHOQOL-BREF, validated in 2006. Both questionnaires were administrated in each trimester. For statistical data analysis procedures of descriptive and inductive statistics included in the software package SPSS version 18 were used. Concurrent validity of the new questionnaire we investigated in correlation to the WHOQOL-BREF. We examined the reliability of scales WHOQOL-BREF at different times of pregnancy, including the correlation among trimesters.
Results: Based on exploratory factor analysis of specific questionnaire, one 9-item scale, with stable high loading in single factor, was constructed. It has satisfactory internal consistency and expresses the level of specific experiences in pregnancy (Cronbach's α ˃ 0.7).
Conclusion: We were able to construct and validate a specific screening questionnaire easy to use within prenatal care. The questionnaire has satisfactory reliability and proves concurrent validity with standardly used the questionnaire WHOQOL-BRF. Unidimensional pregnancy QOL-GRAV scale which is composed from 9-items enables more sensitive and accurate detection of the rate of specific experiences during pregnancy, significantly affecting the quality of life of each pregnant woman.
Keywords: pregnancy, quality of life, generic questionnaire, WHOQOL-BREF, specific questionnaire, pregnancy scale
Mgr. Eva Vachková, Ph.D.
Ústav sociálního lékařství, Univerzita Karlova v Praze, Lékařská fakulta v Hradci Králové
Šimkova 870
500 38 Hradec Králové
Česká republika
e-mail: vachkovae@lfhk.cuni.cz
Received: 23rd March 2014
Accepted: 2nd June 2014