International Research Journal of Biochemistry and Bioinformatics

Abstract

Women's childbirth experience can have immediate as well as long-term positive or negative effects on their life, well-being and health. When evaluating and drawing conclusions from research results, women's experiences of childbirth should be one aspect to consider. Researchers and clinicians need help in finding and selecting the most suitable instrument for their purpose. The aim of this study has therefore to systematically identify and present validated instruments measuring women's childbirth experience. A systematic review has conducted in January 2020 with a comprehensive search in the bibliographic databases PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, The Cochrane Library and PsycINFO. Included instruments measured women's childbirth experiences. Papers have assessed independently by two reviewers for inclusion, and quality assessment of included instruments has made by two reviewers independently and in pairs using T head shape criteria for evaluation of psychometric properties. In total 5189 citations have screened, of which 5106 have excluded by title and abstract. Eighty-three full-text papers have reviewed, and 37 papers have excluded, resulting in 46 included papers representing 36 instruments. These instruments demonstrated a wide range in purpose and content as well as in the quality of psychometric properties. This systematic review provides an overview of existing instruments measuring women's childbirth experiences and can support researchers to identify appropriate instruments to be used, and maybe adapted, in their specific contexts and research purpose.