Scale Development
First of all, a literature review was conducted regarding the deck-chair theory developed by Jean Ball about the emotional well-being of mothers. Based on this theory, a theoretical framework was established so that the items of the scale would be gathered under 3 conceptual frameworks (personality and experiences of the mother, social support, and healthcare and education).5,8,12,13,15-17To find publications about the emotional well-being of mothers, key phrases such as “personality of a mother”, “experiences of a mother”, “social support”, “health education”, “healthcare”, “emotional well-being of a mother”, and “deck-chair theory” were used for searches on the Cochrane Library, PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar databases. Dissertation studies on this topic and existing measurement instruments were also searched. No measurement instrument developed within a theoretical framework regarding the emotional well-being of mothers was encountered. Information about the topic was collected by the researchers, and a broad item pool (39 items) was prepared.
In the second stage, the initial form of the scale (instructions, items, response options) was submitted for the opinions of 16 experts regarding its relevance, comprehensiveness, comprehensibility, and convenience of usage. The consulted experts included 4 professors, 5 associate professors, and 7 assistant professors who specialized in the field of midwifery. The experts were asked to rate each item based on how much it represented the emotional well-being of mothers in the scope of the deck-chair theory by Jean Ball and provide written feedback, if necessary, about words that were considered hard to understand or issues that were considered missing.
In the third stage, the content validity of the scale was tested. The initial form of the scale included 39 items. During the content validity testing phase, no item needed to be removed based on the recommendations of the experts.