Validation of the Chichewa Perinatal PTSD Questionnaire and Chichewa Child Health Worry Scale

Malawian mothers regardless of gestation at birth find pregnancy to be a stressful period that triggers worry due to a fear of maternal death. Research has mostly focused on maternal depressive symptoms regardless of gestation. Limited literature exists on posttraumatic stress symptoms and maternal worry. The purpose of this study was to translate and validate the Perinatal PTSD Questionnaire and Child Health Worry Scale for assessment of posttraumatic stress symptoms and worry about child’s health, respectively, among Malawian women. The process of assuring the accuracy of the translation involved having five native English-speaking nurse researchers and eight Malawian nurse-midwives in a focus group review the translations. We then psychometrically tested the instruments with 30 postpartum mothers at Kamuzu College of Nursing and Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital. Findings from the nurse researchers and the nurse-midwives agreed with most of the translations and modifications were done to improve the adaptations. The instruments were administered to the postpartum mothers. The Chichewa Self Reporting Questionnaire was used as the standard for assessment of perinatal emotional distress symptoms. Both the Chichewa Perinatal PTSD Questionnaire and Chichewa Child Health Worry Scale had high internal consistency and showed strong to moderate correlations with the Chichewa Self Reporting Questionnaire. The mothers agreed that the questions were easy to understand and culturally sensitive, although a few questions were seen as distressing. Future adaptations need to consider testing the instruments in mothers throughout infancy and utilizing other gold standard instruments for validation. Keywords: Depression, Posttraumatic stress, Anxiety, Worry, Mothers, Postpartum period