Objective:

To determine the validity of the construct, concurrent validity and reliability of a quality perception scale used in prenatal care.

Materials and methods:

Cross-sectional study of 842 pregnant women who attended prenatal visits and were then delivered in three hospitals in Lima, Peru, between March 2011 and April 2014. A structured interview using a 12-item questionnaire was applied and a Likert-type scale (1 to 5 points) was used. An exploratory factor analysis was applied for construct validity based on main components with varimax rotation, KMO, Bartlett’s Chi square, and the Kaiser, Meyer Olkin (KMO) test. Spearman’s rho correlation was used for determining concurrent validity. Crohnbach’s alpha coefficient and the Spearman-Brown correlation coefficient were used for determining reliability or homogeneity among the questions.

Results:

In terms of age, 85% were between 20 and 35 years old. The median of the scale was 41 points (range 25-55). Four dimensions were identified: safety-comfort, access, efficacy and professional competency. There is a good correlation between these dimensions (KMO=0.776 p<0.001), Cronbach’s alpha reliability was 0.76, and the Spearman-Brown correlation was 0.71. Sepearman’srho correlation coefficient showed positive correlations among the dimensions found.

Conclusions:

A four-domain prenatal care quality score which validates the perception of pregnant women in Peru is presented.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )