Fear of Childbirth: cross-cultural adaptation of the Wijma Delivery Experience Questionnaire version B in Brazilian Portuguese and cross-sectional study

Abstract

Abstract Objectives: the present study aims to carry out a cross-cultural adaptation of the Wijma Delivery Expectancy/Experience Questionnaire Version B (WDEQ-B) into Brazilian Portuguese and apply it to a sample of Brazilian postpartum women, evaluating the prevalence of Fear of Childbirth (FoC) and possible associated factors. Methods: we conducted a cross-sectional study encompassing a process of translation and back-translation of the instrument followed by a pretesting phase. Results: we performed a cross-cultural adaptation of the WDEQ-B, with reasonable match from the original instrument and broadly comprehensible by our sample. 57 postpartum women were included, at three public maternity hospitals, finding a severe FoC prevalence of 10.6%. In addition, analyzing FoC and disruption between desired and actual delivery, a prevalence ratio of 10.8 (CI95%=1.3-87.7, p=0.026), was found. Conclusion: the WDEQ-B was successfully adapted to the Brazilian Portuguese and showed to be a linguistic and culturally comprehensible research tool to analyze FoC among postpartum women in our population. Moreover, the study showed that disruption between desired and actual delivery mode might be associated with FoC occurrence.

Keywords

• Fear
• Childbirth
• Questionnaire
• Cross-cultural adaptation
• Postpartum women