Birth Satisfaction Scale/Birth Satisfaction Scale-Revised (BSS/BSS-R): A large scale United States planned home birth and birth centre survey

Abstract

Objective: To explore the prevalence of birth satisfaction for childbearing women planning to birth in their home or birth centers in the United States. Examining differences in birth satisfaction of the home and birth centers; and those who birthed in a hospital using the 30-item Birth Satisfaction Scale (BSS) and the 10-item Birth Satisfaction Scale-Revised (BSS-R).Study design: A quantitative survey using the BSS and BSS-R were employed.Additional demographic data were collected using electronic linkages (Qualtrics TM ).Participants: A convenience sample of childbearing women (n=2229) who had planned to birth in their home or birth center from the US (United States) participated.Participants were recruited via professional and personal contacts, primarily their midwives. Results:The total 30-item BSS score mean was 128.98 (SD 16.92) and the 10-item BSS-R mean score was 31.94(SD 6.75). Sub-scale mean scores quantified the quality of care provision, women's personal attributes, and stress experienced during labor. Satisfaction was higher for women with vaginal births compared with caesareans deliveries. In addition, satisfaction was higher for women who had both planned to deliver in a home or a birth center, and who had actually delivered in a home or a birth center.Key conclusions: Total and subscale birth satisfaction scores were positive and high for the overall sample Implications for practice: The BSS and the BSS-R provide a robust tool to quantify women's experiences of childbirth between variables such as birth types, birth settings and providers.

Development and validation of the Australian version of the Birth Satisfaction Scale-Revised (BSS-R)

“…The BSS-R has been validated and translated into Greek (Vardavaki, Hollins Martin, & Martin, 2015) and a United States (Barbosa-Leiker, Fleming, Hollins Martin, & Martin, 2015) version of the tool, with these studies suggesting excellent validity and reliability. The US version of the BSS-R has recently been used in a large-scale US study (Fleming et al, 2016) and a psychometric evaluation of the data from that study corroborated not only the excellent psychometric properties of the US version, but also its measurement robustness when comparing discrete sub-groups within the sample (C. R. Martin et al, 2016a). A comparison of UK and Greek BSS-R datasets has revealed the instrument to be both conceptually and statistically comparable (C.R.…”

“…A pertinent feature of Australian maternity care services are that they remain highly medicalised (Benoit, Zadoroznyj, Hallgrimsdottir, Treloar, & Taylor, 2010;Weaver, Clark, & Vernon, 2005) despite the strong movement led by government reforms towards midwifery-led models (Quinn, Noble, Seale, & Ward, 2013;Tracy et al, 2013;Tracy et al, 2014). However, the movement toward woman-centred care and choice has gathered some pace in Australia (Catling & Homer, 2016) and similar to both the UK and the US (Fleming et al, 2016; C. J. The BSS-R would appear to be ideally suited as the measure of choice within this context, however an Australian version of the BSS-R has to date, yet to be developed and psychometrically evaluated.…”

Measuring women’s childbirth experiences: a systematic review for identification and analysis of validated instruments

“…The revised version of the scale is a more robust version. They have been used in research [97–99] and further cultural translation and validation has been made in Greece and the US [79, 80, 100]. The Early Labour Experience Questionnaire/ELEQ [47]Janssen & Desmarais (2013)USATo measure women’s experiences with their early labour care.Developed to measure women’s experience and evaluate care given in the latent and early phase of labour [47, 101].…”

Notes on home birth: Safety, interventionism and satisfaction

“…As we have stated before, expectations play an important role on the overall satisfaction, since women who planned to give birth at home or a birth center but ended up in the hospital tended to score lower on satisfaction tests (44). Studies developed in Belgium and Sweden also showed that women who needed to be transferred to a hospital tended to describe negatively the overall experience and emotional aspects of it (45).…”

“…When it comes to the actual satisfaction of the process it becomes clear that it relies not only on the chosen setting, but also in the expectations that the women may have developed towards the process. However, S. Fleming et al (44) did nd that satisfaction was higher for women who had both planned to deliver in a home or a birth center, and who had actually delivered in a home or a birth center. These ndings were assessed using both the Birth satisfaction scale (BSS) and a shorter version on it, the Birth satisfaction scale revised (BSS-R).…”