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The labour agentry scale: Psychometric properties of an instrument measuring control during childbirth
Author(s) -
Hodnett Ellen D.,
SimmonsTropea Daryl A.
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
research in nursing and health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.836
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1098-240X
pISSN - 0160-6891
DOI - 10.1002/nur.4770100503
Subject(s) - childbirth , scale (ratio) , psychometrics , psychology , anxiety , construct validity , confirmatory factor analysis , clinical psychology , construct (python library) , developmental psychology , psychiatry , pregnancy , structural equation modeling , statistics , genetics , physics , mathematics , quantum mechanics , biology , computer science , programming language
Psychometric and field studies are reported concerning the development and assessment of the Labour Agentry Scale, an instrument measuring expectancies and experiences of personal control during childbirth. Factor analysis yielded evidence that it is a unifactorial scale, with factor loadings between 0.36 and 0.85. Dual‐scaling techniques corroborated the results of factor analysis and provided evidence that few differences exist between antepartum and postpartum samples' responses to individual items. Field studies yielded evidence of an inverse relationship between anxiety and control, as well as evidence of construct validity. For example, subjects who had spontaneous, unmedicated births had the highest Labour Agentry Scale scores.