Development of Mother’s Lifestyle Scale during Pregnancy with an Approach to Social Determinants of Health

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: The present study was conducted to design and measure psychometrics of mothers’ lifestyle scale during pregnancy with regards to Iranians’ cultural norms and an approach to social determinants. METHOD: this study, started by reviewing previous studies and exploring similar questionnaires that examine different domains of lifestyle (nutrition, exercising, self-care, smoking, using alcohol and illegal drugs, social relations, and stress control), then besides translating questions of the questionnaires, content of some questions was modified and proper statements with regards to social determinant of health and Iranian cultural, was used. Secondly, the validity of the designed instruments was determined using face, content, criterion, and construct validity. Thirdly, the reliability of the measurement instruments was examined using Cronbach’s alpha. Participants were Healthy Iranian pregnant women (37-42 week) who refer to selected hospital for delivery. RESULTS: In the first step of the study, of the 222 questions obtained from a review of the related instruments, certain questions were omitted due to their irrelevance to social determinants of health and finally 160 questions were selected in 10 sections. After determining the face and content validity qualitatively and quantitatively and exploratory factor analysis, the number of questionnaire items was reduced to 132. Calculation of Cronbach’s alpha confirmed the high internal consistency (0.76) of the questionnaire. CONCLUSION: This measurement instrument was designed in the context of the Iranian culture and sounded suitable for studying the pregnant women’s lifestyle due to its appropriate validity and reliability, simplicity, and functionality in different situations.