Development and Preliminary Validation of the Traditional Chinese Antenatal Practice Scale Among Pregnant Hong Kong Chinese Women

Abstract

Background and Purpose: There have been no valid assessment tools to measure traditional Chinese antenatal practice of safeguarding fetuses from danger. This study developed the Traditional Chinese Antenatal Practice Scale (TCAPS) and evaluated the preliminary psychometric characteristics. Methods: The TCAPS was developed in 2 phases. Phase I consisted of developing the TCAPS based on an extensive literature review followed by 3 focus groups, and then using a panel of 5 experts to test its content validity. Phase II established the preliminary psychometric properties of the TCAPS among 2,178 pregnant women. Results: Content validity was confirmed by a satisfactory level of agreement with content validity index (CVI) of 0.91. Structural validity testing achieved by exploratory factor analysis (EFA) revealed a 3-factor structure of the 13-item scale. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted using linear structural relations (LISREL) to confirm the structure. Further, convergent validity and known-groups analyses were used to support the good validity. The test–retest reliability and Cronbach’s alpha of the TCAPS are .83 and .81, respectively, which suggests satisfactory reliability. Conclusions: Our data demonstrated good validity and reliability of the TCAPS that health professionals could use in clinical situations to acquire a more comprehensive view of Chinese women.