Good practices in normal childbirth: reliability analysis of an instrument by Cronbach’s Alpha

OBJECTIVES: to analyze the internal consistency of the evaluation instrument of the adherence to the good practices of childbirth and birth care in the professionals, through Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficient for each of the dimensions and for the total instrument. METHOD: this is a descriptive and cross-sectional study performed in obstetric centers of eleven public hospitals in the Federal District, with a questionnaire applied to 261 professionals who worked in the delivery care. RESULTS: The study was attended by 261 professionals, 42.5% (111) nurses and 57.5% (150) physicians. The reliability evaluation of the instrument by the Cronbach Alfa resulted in 0.53, 0.78 and 0.76 for dimensions 1, 2 and 3, after debugging that resulted in the exclusion of 11 items. CONCLUSIONS: the instrument obtained Cronbach’s alpha of 0.80. There is a need for improvement in the items of dimension 1 that refer to attitudes, knowledge, and practices of the organization of the network of care to gestation, childbirth, and birth. However, it can be applied in the way it is used to evaluate practices based on scientific evidence of childbirth care.