Quality of prenatal care questionnaire: instrument development and testing

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Quality Assessment
• Maternal Health Research
• Instrument Development

Background:

• Existing indices measure prenatal care quantity, but not quality.
• A validated instrument for assessing prenatal care quality was lacking.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and test a new instrument to assess the quality of prenatal care.
• Introduce the Quality of Prenatal Care Questionnaire (QPCQ).

Main Methods:

• Item generation through interviews and literature review.
• Content validity assessment and item importance rating.
• Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis for item reduction and validation.
• Testing construct validity, internal consistency, and test-retest reliability in postpartum women.

Main Results:

• The Quality of Prenatal Care Questionnaire (QPCQ) was reduced to 46 items across 6 subscales.
• Demonstrated strong construct validity (r=0.81 with satisfaction) and convergent validity (r=0.63).
• Achieved high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha=0.96) and test-retest reliability (ICC=0.88).

Conclusions:

• The QPCQ is a valid and reliable instrument for measuring prenatal care quality.
• It can be used as an outcome measure in research comparing care across regions, populations, and models.
• The QPCQ will help assess the link between care quality and maternal/infant health outcomes.