The Development of the Maternal Breastfeeding Evaluation Scale

Abstract

A Maternal Breastfeeding Evaluation Scale was developed from categories identified in qualitative research. Content validity was tested according to procedures described by Imle and Atwood' and Lynn.2A sample of 442 women who had breastfed completed an instrument of 56 Likert-scale items. A retest questionnaire was completed by a subsample of 28 women. Exploratory factor analysis resulted in three factors, accounting for 38.5 percent of the variance: Maternal Enjoyment/Role Attainment (29 percent), Infant Satisfaction/Growth (5 percent), and Lifestyle/Maternal Body Image (4 percent). A revised 30-item MBFES was developed using items loading strongly on these three factors. Cronbach's alphas for the revised scale and subscales were.93,.93,.88, and.80, respectively. Test-retest correlations (n=28) were.93,.93,.94, and.82, respectively (p