The Childbirth Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) was developed and validated among first-time mothers in 2010 in Sweden 1. It has been validated in the United Kingdom too in 2015 2. It measures four main domains of the childbirth experience. Those are own capacity, professional support, perceived safety and participation comprising of 22 items 1,2. This CEQ is a simple self-administered questionnaire to assess women’s satisfaction in different aspects of their first labour and birth 1. However woman’s perceptions and experiences in childbirth are being rarely evaluated. Moreover, primiparous women are prone to get negative childbirth experiences 1,2.
Since there is no properly validated instrument in Sinhala language to assess childbirth experience in Sri Lankan women, Sinhala CEQ will be a worthwhile effort. Latest NICE guideline on intrapartum care has also highlighted that any research on the effectiveness of interventions in latent stage of labour needs measuring woman's satisfaction with childbirth experience 3. In a similar manner for any study investigating woman’s satisfaction with her birth experience in Sri Lanka needs to have a standardised method like CEQ. Validation of this tool will be important in future research, audit projects as well as in service evaluation. Different tools to assess maternal childbirth experience are essential to identify those who need psychological and moral support. Therefore, this tool can be used to assess various dimensions of childbirth experience in first-time mothers 1.
Review of literature
The birth of a child is a significant event in a woman’s life and family. Labour room staff should always try to make her labour experience as comfortable and dignified as possible. Although women seems to be satisfied with a healthy baby, the childbirth also has a psychological dimension 4,5. Address of these hidden aspects is important for a positive childbirth experience and mother’s long-term well-being 4,5. Midwives are doing a wonderful job with labouring women and helping them to achieve a satisfactory birth experience 5. Higher workload in the hospitals resulted a sub-standard level of intrapartum care during childbirth 5. Studies have reported that mothers often felt alone and unsupported during childbirth process and some of them would not get pregnant again due to the negative experience they had during last childbirth 5. In the latest Cochrane review on continuous support for women during childbirth has reported that continuous labour support with the help from a labour companion (doula) who is a member of the labouring woman’s social network, has been proved to effective in improving laboring women’s satisfaction 6 and hence their childbirth experience. Thus it elaborates the significance of woman’s psychological well-being and achieving a satisfactory childbirth experience in addition to birth of her baby.
The quality of intrapartum care that a particular woman gets has an impact on her physical and emotional well-being 3. It has both short-term and longer-term effects including care towards the newborn 3. Good communication with woman, support from labour ward staff and having woman’s wishes respected, can enhance her confidence contributing to make a positive childbirth experience 3. Negative experiences coming from their first childbirth can increase the risk of postpartum depression. It may give rise to a negative attitude in future pregnancies and childbirth too prompting women to request elective caesarean section 7.
Objective of the study
General Objective is to translate and validate the CEQ from English language to the cultural context and lifestyle related to the Sinhala language. Specific objectives are to conduct a linguistic translation, to conduct a validation study and to assess the psychometric properties of the Sinhala version of the CEQ.