The Canadian Birth Place Study: Development, Validation and Administration of a Questionnaire for Multi-disciplinary Maternity Care Providers

Laura Schummers, BSc, Saraswathi Vedam, RM, FACNM, MSN, SciD (h.c.), Nichole Fairbrother, PhD, Rpsych,
Michael C. Klein, MD, CCFP, FAAP, FCFP, ABFP, FCPS and Janusz Kaczorowski, MA PhD

ABSTRACT
The debate between professional groups in Canada about the advisability of planned home birth continues.
The Canadian Birth Place Study examines Canadian registered midwives', family physicians', and
obstetricians' experiences with and attitudes towards planned home birth, as well as factors associated with
in those attitudes. Evidence based strategies were applied to the development, validity testing, and
implementation of a cross-sectional questionnaire to a multi-disciplinary sample of maternity care providers.
The survey questions and attitude scale items were adapted from a previously validated questionnaire and
reviewed by two discipline-specific expert panels. Experts provided qualitative comments and rated each
socio-demographic and attitude item on three 4-point Likert-type scales to evaluate importance, clarity, and
relevance. Aggregated scores (content validity indices) demonstrated strong content validity of items. The
questionnaire construction and administration plan incorporated best practices for increasing response rates
among healthcare providers, as well as participation from multiple perspectives on a controversial topic
across study populations.

KEY WORDS
Validation Studies; Survey Methodology; Inter-professional relations; Home Childbirth; Parturition.

This article has been peer-reviewed.