Sample
The population of the study included postpartum women at the Postpartum
Care Service of Atatürk City Hospital in the Balıkesir province of
Turkey. To conduct factor analyses in psychometric studies, it is
recommended to include a sample size of 5 to 10 times the number of
items on a scale. Other recommendations for scale development and
testing studies include a minimum of 200 participants for exploratory
factor analysis (EFA), a minimum of 200 participants for confirmatory
factor analysis (CFA), and a minimum of 400 participants in
total.20-24 As the draft scale form included 39 items,
it was planned to include at least 390 participants, while the sample of
the study consequently included 403 participants. However, because the
responses of 5 participants to the scale items included missing data,
the analyses excluded the data of these participants, and the study was
completed with 398 postpartum women.
The inclusion criteria for this study were being at least 18 years old,
having a living baby, and being ready to be discharged. Postpartum women
who were younger than 18 years old, those who were not ready to be
discharged, and those who had lost their babies were excluded. The data
collection forms were administered to the women who were at the
postpartum care service by the researchers. It took each participant
approximately 10 minutes to fill out the forms.