Compilation and item selection of a pregnancy life events questionnaire

Objective To develop a pregnancy life events questionnaire(PLQ) for the research on pregnancy psychosocial-stress in pregnant women.Methods Theoretical concept was proposed based on literature reviews on psychosocial stress scales.The stress during pregnancy was divided into four dimensionalities described by thirty-five items.Totally 3 195 first trimester pregnant women were recruited in Hefei city to collect their life events during pregnancy and 3 125 provided valid information.Two-sample t-test,correlation analysis and factor analysis were applied to analyze the items of the questionnaire.Results Twelve iterms with the response rate less than 0.1 were deleted and one non-significant item(item 26) according to t-test(P=0.074) was deleted.The item 15,27 and 33 with factor analysis values of 0.304,0.294,and 0.364 were deleted.Because the Cronbach's α coefficient of the questionnaire increased after item 2,5 and 21 being deleted,the 3 items were also deleted.Another one item with factor analysis value of 0.167 was deleted based on exploratory.After the screening with correlation coefficient method, the correlation coefficients between each item and other dimensions were all <0.4 and correlation coefficients between every item within the dimensions were all >0.4.Conclusion The PLQ with 15 items was preliminarily compiled.