Validity and reliability of the Arabic version of Muller’s prenatal attachment inventory

Abstract

Increased maternal fetal attachment (MFA) is associated to improved health practices. A tool to measure MFA within an Arab cultural context was developed to help health care providers identify and help women with low MFA. Muller's 21-item Prenatal Attachment Inventory (PAI) was translated from English into Arabic and tested on 250 pregnant Arab women in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to measure its psychometric properties and appropriateness within an Arab cultural context. A cross-sectional quantitative study was conducted in two phases. First, the tool was translated using the Universal Translation Approach and assessed for content validity. In this phase there were four new items added to the original tool and their validity was tested in the second phase. In the second phase, the tool was tested on the study population, descriptive statistics were developed, association tests were used to explore associations between demographic variables and MFA, factor analysis was conducted and reliability was assessed using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Associations between MFA and maternal variables were found such as downloading an application to follow the baby's growth, planning to breastfeed the baby and parity. The Arabic tool could serve Arab-speaking countries and help researchers explore new associations between MFA and the social determinants of health for Arab mothers and babies. Key words: Maternal fetal attachment, maternal antenatal attachment, psychometrics, attachment, mother-fetus attachment, Arabic maternal fetal attachment, and Arab maternal fetal attachment. ii Acknowledgements This work was supported by Qatar Research Leadership Program (QRLP) from the Qatar Foundation in Doha, Qatar.

Relationship between emotional intelligence and prenatal attachment levels of women with healthy and high-risk pregnancies

“…The European Research Journal 2023 ! nancy had lower prenatal attachment levels than those with healthy pregnancy, there are studies alleging that women with high-risk pregnancy had lower prenatal attachment levels [19,20]. In this current research, the prenatal attachment of women with healthy and highrisk pregnancies was found to be similar and at medium levels.…”

“…In this current research, the prenatal attachment of women with healthy and highrisk pregnancies was found to be similar and at medium levels. Likewise, in the relevant literature, pregnant women were in general reported to have 'medium-level' prenatal attachment [10,[19][20][21]. As per Lazarus and Folkman's understanding [22], a prospective mother who is faced with a new situation or change suffers stress.…”

“…In this current research, it was ascertained that there was no statistically significant association between education level and prenatal attachment level of pregnant women. In the relevant literature, there are studies demonstrating that there was an inverse or no relationship between education level and prenatal attachment level [19,20,24,[28][29][30][31]. Watson and Clark [30] characterize emotions as organism's needs, aims and its adaptive responses which are addressed to incidents and essential to its survival and adaptation to the environment.…”

Prenatal attachment: using measurement invariance to test the validity of comparisons across eight culturally diverse countries

“…Thus, women may internalise rather than externalise their developing bond. Highlighting the importance of cultural appropriateness, Arafah et al (2020) included four new items in the PAI to capture the MFA amongst Arabic-speaking women in Qatar (e.g., 'I am careful with my activities so nothing will hurt my baby'). Future qualitative research might therefore help highlight relevant questions for pregnant women in Pakistan or whether the MFA construct lacks validity in this context.…”