Related Experiment Video

Updated: Oct 4, 2025

Analysis of Electrocardiograms and Behavior in Mice from Pregnancy to Lactation Period
06:40

Analysis of Electrocardiograms and Behavior in Mice from Pregnancy to Lactation Period

Published on: April 5, 2024

602

The Baby Care Scale: A Psychometric Study With Fathers During Pregnancy and the Postpartum Period

Tiago Miguel Pinto1, Rui Nunes-Costa1, Bárbara Figueiredo1

  • 1Psychology Research Centre, School of Psychology, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal.

Frontiers in Psychology
|February 3, 2022
PubMed

Insights

The Baby Care Scale (BCS) is a reliable tool for measuring father involvement in infant care. Both antenatal (BCS-AN) and postnatal (BCS-PN) versions demonstrate strong psychometric properties.

Area of Science:

  • Psychology
  • Parenting Studies
  • Child Development

Background:

  • Assessing father involvement in infant care is crucial for understanding family dynamics.
  • The Baby Care Scale (BCS) was developed to measure paternal engagement during pregnancy and postpartum.
  • Validating psychometric properties of the BCS antenatal (BCS-AN) and postnatal (BCS-PN) versions is essential.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To examine the psychometric characteristics of the BCS-AN and BCS-PN.
  • To evaluate the reliability and validity of the BCS for assessing father involvement.
  • To explore the relationship between father involvement and mental health during the perinatal period.

Main Methods:

  • 100 primiparous fathers completed the BCS-AN and/or BCS-PN.
  • Participants self-reported anxiety, depressive symptoms, and father-infant emotional involvement.
  • Psychometric analyses including internal consistency and factor analysis were performed.

Main Results:

  • Both BCS-AN and BCS-PN demonstrated good internal consistency.
  • A two-factor model (household tasks, infant care tasks) was identified for both versions.
  • Higher BCS-AN scores predicted higher BCS-PN scores, indicating good predictive validity.
  • Significant associations were found between BCS scores, mental health symptoms, and father-infant emotional involvement, supporting criterion validity.

Conclusions:

  • The BCS-AN and BCS-PN are reliable and multidimensional self-report measures.
  • These scales effectively assess father involvement in infant care during pregnancy and postpartum.
  • The BCS provides valuable insights into paternal engagement and its correlates.

Keywords:
Baby Care Scaleanxiety and depressive symptomsfathersfather–infant emotional involvementinvolvement in infant carepsychometric characteristics

More Related Videos

Assessing the Coherence of Parents' Short Narratives Regarding their Child Using the Five-Minute Speech Sample Procedure07:56

Assessing the Coherence of Parents' Short Narratives Regarding their Child Using the Five-Minute Speech Sample Procedure

Published on: September 19, 2019

10.2K
Assessment and Evaluation of the High Risk Neonate: The NICU Network Neurobehavioral Scale19:15

Assessment and Evaluation of the High Risk Neonate: The NICU Network Neurobehavioral Scale

Published on: August 25, 2014

86.6K

Related Concept Videos

Socioemotional Development during Infancy01:30

Socioemotional Development during Infancy

Socio-emotional development in infancy is primarily shaped by early emotional responses and social connections, with temperament playing a central role. Temperament refers to the consistent patterns in an individual's emotional and behavioral responses, observable even in infancy. By examining temperament, researchers can better understand an infant's unique ways of interacting with the world, influencing subsequent personality and socio-emotional growth.
Primary Temperament Types
180
Parenting Styles01:27

Parenting Styles

Diana Baumrind's four parenting styles — authoritarian, authoritative, neglectful, and permissive — each influence children's socio-emotional development differently.
Authoritarian Parenting
This style is strict and controlling, with little room for open dialogue. Authoritarian parents demand obedience and often enforce rules with minimal warmth. Children raised this way may lack social skills and initiative, usually comparing themselves to others unfavorably.
Authoritative...
189
Relationship with Parents: Attachment01:28

Relationship with Parents: Attachment

Parent-child interactions lay the foundation for how we understand relationships throughout life. These interactions are not uniform across families; instead, they are shaped by a range of environmental, emotional, and behavioral factors unique to each caregiver-child dynamic. Social psychologists study these early relationships to understand how patterns formed in infancy influence social functioning and interpersonal behavior in adulthood.Attachment Theory and Early Relational ModelsJohn...
16
Self-Report Tests of Personality01:22

Self-Report Tests of Personality

Self-report inventories are objective personality assessments that use multiple-choice items or numbered scales, typically ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). They are often called Likert scales after Rensis Likert. These inventories are widely used due to their ease of administration and cost-effectiveness. One of the most prominent examples is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), initially developed in the 1940s to assess abnormal personality traits.
490
Attachment01:20

Attachment

Attachment is vital for infant development, as warm social interactions support growth and well-being. In a classic 1958 study by Harry Harlow, the significance of warmth and comfort in forming attachments was examined. Harlow separated newborn monkeys from their mothers and provided two artificial "mothers": one made of cold wire and the other covered in soft cloth. Despite the wire mother offering food, the infant monkeys preferred the comfort of the cloth mother, demonstrating that...
165