Translation and psychometric assessment of the Breast-feeding Self-Efficacy Scale-Short Form among pregnant and postnatal women in Turkey

Abstract

Background: most women stop breast feeding before the recommended 6 months post partum. If health professionals are to improve low breast-feeding duration and exclusivity rates, they need to assess high-risk women reliably and identify predisposing factors amenable to intervention. One possible modifiable variable is breast-feeding confidence. The Breast-feeding Self-Efficacy Scale-Short Form (BSES-SF) is a 14-item measure designed to assess a mother's confidence in her ability to breast feed her baby.

Objectives: to translate the BSES-SF into Turkish and assess its psychometric properties among women in the antenatal and postnatal periods.

Design: a methodological study to assess the reliability, validity and predictive value of the BSES-SF.

Setting: two private and two public hospitals and their outpatient health clinics in Izmir, Turkey.

Participants: 144 pregnant women and 150 postnatal breast-feeding mothers were recruited using convenience sampling.

Methods: following back-translation procedures, questionnaires were completed in the third trimester by pregnant women and in the hospital by postnatal women. All mothers were telephoned at approximately 12 weeks after the birth to determine how they were feeding their babies.

Results: Cronbach's alpha coefficient for internal consistency was 0.87 antenatally and 0.86 postnatally. Antenatal and postnatal BSES-SF scores were significant predictors of breast-feeding duration and exclusivity at 12 weeks after the birth. Differences were found between antenatal and postnatal BSES-SF scores for mothers with previous breast-feeding experience compared with scores for mothers with no breast-feeding experience. Demographic response patterns suggest that the BSES-SF is a unique tool to identify pregnant women and new mothers at risk of early cessation of breast feeding.

Conclusions: this study provides evidence that the translated version of the BSES-SF may be a valid and reliable measure of breast-feeding self-efficacy among a perinatal sample in Turkey.