The Fathers' Fear of Childbirth Scale: a Turkish validity and reliability study

Fathers' Fear of Childbirth Scale (FFCS) was developed specifically to measure fathers' fear of childbirth. The aim of this study was to investigate the Turkish validity and reliability of the FFCS.

This study used a cross-sectional and methodological design.

The population of the study consists of 315 pregnant spouses who were registered at a hospital in Ankara, Turkey, between August 11 and 5 November 2021. The mean age of expectant fathers are 31.57 (5.88). After translating the FFCS to Turkish, a confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to examine its construct validity. Concurrent validity was established by examining the correlation between the FFCS-Turkish with the Fear of Birth Scale (FOBS) and the male version of the Childbirth Fear-Prior to Pregnancy scale (M-CFPP). Both internal consistency and test-retest reliability were examined for the FFCS-Turkish. Results: The scope validity index of the scale was found to be 0.96. Based on the results of confirmatory factor analysis, a two-factor structure with 17 items was verified. The fit indices were found to be χ² = 309.610, χ²/df = 2.76, root mean square error = 0.075, goodness of fit index = 0.89, comparative fit index = 0.93, and adjusted goodness of fit index = 0.86. All fit indices were at good levels. A strong correlation was found between the FFCS and the FOBS and M-CFPP scales within the scope of concurrent validity. Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient for the entire scale was 0.93. The test-retest reliability was also high.

The FFCS is a valid and reliable scale and measurement tool that can be used on Turkish expectant fathers.