Design and Validation of the PercOV-S Questionnaire for Measuring Perceived Obstetric Violence in Nursing, Midwifery and Medical Students

Abstract

Background: Obstetric violence could be defined as the dehumanized treatment or abuse of health professionals towards the body or reproductive process of women. Some practices associated with obstetric violence have been routinely standardized and do not include the woman in decision making. This type of violence has consequences for the health of both the mother and the baby and that of the professionals who practice or observed it. Methods: A questionnaire consisting of 33 items that measured perception through a Likert scale was developed. Some sociodemographic variables were collected. The instrument was applied to a sample of nursing, medicine and midwifery students to determine its psychometric properties. Results: The final sample consisted of 153 students. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (p = 0.918) and Barlett tests (p ≤ 0.001) allowed for factor analysis, which explained 54.47% of the variance in two factors called protocolized-visible obstetric violence and non-protocolized-invisible obstetric violence. Conclusions: The PercOV-S (Perception of Obstetric Violence in Students) instrument was validated. The distribution and content of the two factors are closely related to obstetric violence against women. The existence of statistically significant relationships between the sociodemographic variables collected and the global measurements, domains and items of the PercOV-S scale highlight the normalization of obstetric violence as a central factor for future studies.

Obstetric Violence in Spain (Part II): Interventionism and Medicalization during Birth

“…It is possible that some women were unable to identify OV [ 36 ], and even take certain obsolete or harmful practices during childbirth as standard practice [ 10 , 36 , 37 ], which also came across in other areas [ 38 ]. Or, perhaps this problem can be more extended than studies actually reveal, and we are currently able to identify only a small part of the problem by taking an iceberg model as a reference, similarly to what other research works have found [ 39 ]. This vision invites us to reflect on the literacy concept for health.…”

Perception of obstetric violence in a sample of Spanish health sciences students: A cross-sectional study

“…This study enabled us to evaluate how health sciences (medicine, psychology, nursing, midwifery) students perceived obstetric violence with the PercOV-S tool (Mena-Tudela et al, 2020a). The overall PercOV-S results indicated a generalised moderate perception, which was substantially lower on the dimension where obstetric violence was protocolised or visible, with a score obtained with considerable obstetric violence perception for the nonprotocolised or invisible dimension.…”

“…During its validation, the PercOV-S obtained a factor analysis that reduced the questionnaire to two dimensions: protocolised-visible obstetric violence, namely those obstetric interventions that tend to be protocolised (like peripheral access, shaving pubis or lithotomy position); non-protocolised-invisible obstetric violence, namely those obstetric interventions that do not tend to be protocolised like Kristeller manoeuvre, using offensive language or lacking respect, which explained 54.47% of variability. Both the overall score and dimensions gave excellent internal consistency (Global: α=0.936; protocolised-visible obstetric violence: α=0.802; non-protocolised-invisible obstetric violence: α=0.952) (Mena-Tudela et al, 2020a).…”

“…Students' obstetric violence perception was measured by the PercOV-S (Perception of Obstetric Violence in Students) questionnaire (Mena-Tudela et al, 2020a).…”

Obstetric Violence: A Conceptual Analysis in the Nursing Context

“…Black-skinned women (12,15,17,18,20,23,26,30,32,33) with unfavorable financial conditions (12,15,17,18,20,23,26,27,29,30), lower schooling levels (15,17,20,23,26,27,32), and ethnic minorities (15,18,20,27,32) are targets more prone to violent practices, mainly routine interventions and absence of a companion. In addition, many women of low socioeconomic status with low schooling levels had limited access to prenatal consultations, which further led to disinformation about labor and delivery (34).…”