Translation of the UK-Birth-Satisfaction-Scale-Revised (BSS-R) into Brazilian (Portuguese) and description of initial measurement properties

Rationale: The concept of birth satisfaction embraces many factors, which include for example perceived quality of care provision, stress experienced, and personal coping strategies. A woman’s birth experience has the power to affect her mental health, decisions surrounding future birth planning, and quality of relationships with her partner and family. The UK-Birth-Satisfaction-Scale-Revised (UK-BSS-R) is currently recommended as the tool of choice by the International Consortium for Health Outcome Measures (ICHOM) for measuring women’s experiences of childbirth. It was therefore considered important to translate and validate this scale for use in a Brazilian context. Objective: To translate and culturally adapt the UK-BSS-R into Brazilian (Portuguese) and validate its key measurement properties. Methods: A repeated-measures survey was conducted for the purpose of examining factor structure, validity and reliability of the Brazilian (Portuguese)-BSS-R. Participants: Data was gathered from (n = 101) Brazilian Portuguese-speaking postnatal women. Results: The initial measurement characteristics of the Brazilian (Portuguese)-BSS-R in terms of Intraclass Correlational Coefficient, Standard Error of Measurement and minimal detectable change were found to be excellent. Conclusion: The Brazilian (Portuguese)-BSS-R is now considered to be a valid and reliable multidimensional psychometric instrument for measuring birth satisfaction in a Brazilian Portuguese population of postnatal women. This translation was found to be conceptually consistent with the original English-language version (UK-BSS-R) and to have an excellent initial measurement characteristics profile. The direction of future research is indicated, specifically to undertake a thorough psychometric evaluation of the Brazilian (Portuguese)-BSS-R in a larger sample