Assessment of the Attitudes Toward Childbirth in Health Sciences Students–Turkish Adaptation of the Questionnaire CAVE-ST-TR

AbstractBackground: Developing and improving education and training programs for future health professionals as a way to enhance perinatal care and reduce obstetric traumas is a necessity. Objective: The goal of the current study is to adapt a questionnaire that evaluates health science students’ attitudes toward women’s childbirth experiences (CAVE-ST; acronym is for cuestionario de actitudes sobre vivencias y experiencias en el parto) into Turkish and assess its psychometric properties. Method: The sample comprised 950 undergraduate students in midwifery departments in Turkey aged between 20 and 41 years (M = 22.42, SD = 1.79). Participants filled out the Demographic Information Form as well as CAVE-ST-TR. Item and scale content validity index (I-CVI and S-CVI), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), Pearson’s correlation coefficients, Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient, and Guttman split-half coefficient were used to examine psychometric properties. Results: The results revealed that the 52-item and four-factor CAVE-ST-TR is a valid and reliable tool to assess health science students’ attitudes toward women’s childbirth experiences. Conclusion: This study would enhance the cross-cultural utility of the questionnaire.Keywords: CAVE-STCAVE-ST-TRchildbirthperinatal carevalidityreliability AcknowledgementsThis paper contributes to the EU COST Action 18211: DEVoTION: Perinatal Mental Health and Birth-Related Trauma: Maximising best practice and optimal outcomes (supported by COST [European Cooperation in Science and Technology]). GGİ is management committee member, and all authors are members of COST Action CA18211.Research Involving Human Participants and/or AnimalsAll procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee (Mersin University, Date: 28.10.2020, No: 22/728) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.Informed ConsentInformed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.Author ContributionStudy conception and design: BKA, GGI, EGM.Data collection: BKA, GGI.Data analysis and interpretation: BKA.Drafting of the article: BKA, GGI, EGM.Critical revision of the article: BKA, GGI, EGM.Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Data Availability StatementThe datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.