Postpartum Excessive Social Support Scale: A Scale Development and Psychometric Testing Study

Area of Science:

• Maternal Health
• Psychometrics
• Sociology of Family

Background:

• Child-rearing in collectivist cultures involves extensive family support, primarily from female relatives.
• Excessive or controlling social factors can negatively impact maternal roles during the postpartum period.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and psychometrically evaluate a measurement tool, the Postpartum Excessive Social Support Scale (PESSS).
• To identify and quantify excessive social support that may hinder maternal role adaptation.

Main Methods:

• Scale development involved expert review and online administration of a draft scale to 440 postpartum mothers (1-6 weeks).
• Psychometric evaluation included exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, Cronbach's alpha for reliability, and tests for response bias and additivity.

Main Results:

• The Postpartum Excessive Social Support Scale (PESSS) demonstrated strong content validity (CVI=0.80) and internal reliability (Cronbach's alpha=0.936).
• Factor analysis revealed a four-factor structure explaining 64.197% of the variance: social pressure, environmental effects on paternal and maternal roles, and mother-infant interaction barriers.
• The scale showed no response bias and was additive, with a Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin value of 0.916.

Conclusions:

• The 20-item PESSS is a reliable and valid instrument for measuring excessive social support in the early postpartum period (1-6 weeks).
• This scale can assist healthcare professionals in identifying mothers experiencing detrimental social pressures, enabling targeted postpartum care and support.