Development and Validation of A Decision-Making Donor Conception Questionnaire in Iranian Infertile Couples

BACKGROUND: Despite the fact that many infertile couples have to decide about whether or not to choose donor con- ception, there is no predictive scale for evaluating the process of decision-making on donor conception and its deter- minants in such couples. The present study was conducted to develop a decision-making questionnaire for selecting donor conception and assess its psychometric properties in Iranian infertile couples. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This cross-sectional validation study was conducted based on the method developed by DeVellis (2012) in four steps at Milad Infertility Clinic, Mashhad, Iran. The dimensions of the concept of decision- making were determined in the first step based on the qualitative results obtained from 38 semi-structured in-depth interviews. Items that were appropriate for the questionnaire were developed in the second step using the qualitative data and a review of the literature. In the third step, the research team reviewed and eliminated some of the items. The fourth step evaluated the face, content and construct validity of the questionnaire through exploratory factor analysis on a sample of 220 infertile couples using convenience sampling and investigated its initial and final reliability. RESULTS: Based on the results of the qualitative study, a pool of 170 items was developed, 101 of which were elimi- nated after revision due to ambiguity, repetition or their poor face and content validity and initial reliability. The questionnaire was evaluated for its construct validity with 69 items. After the exploratory factor analysis, the decision- making donor conception questionnaire (DMDCQ) having 51 items and seven factors, was finalized. All the factors had Cronbach’s alpha values of 0.75-0.87 and intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC) greater than 0.7. CONCLUSION: This study led to development of a valid and reliable scale for examining infertile couples’ decision- making about whether or not to use donor conception as well as the determinants of this decision.