Étude des propriétés psychométriques d’une échelle d’attachement prénatal. Version française de la Prenatal Attachment Inventory (PAI, Müller, 1993)

Abstract

Maternal-foetal attachment is the term used to describe the relationship between a pregnant woman and her foetus. This concept, created in 1981 and based on maternal cognitive representations of the foetus, describes the degree to which a woman engages in attachment behaviours toward her unborn baby. Three scales have been developed to quantify maternofoetal attachment and only a few studies have been published (72 since 1981). None of theses three scales is available in French language. The aim of the study is to provide psychometric data concerning the Prenatal Attachment Inventory when administered to healthy pregnant women. This scale was developed and revised by Müller in 1993 and consists of 21 items. The items describe the mother's troughs, feelings and relationship to the foetus. Each item has four Likert-type options: 4=almost always, 3=often, 2=sometimes, and 1=almost never. Examples of the PAI items are "I feel love for the baby", "I dream about the baby" and "I enjoy feeling the baby move". Furthermore, this present study explores the prenatal attachment for the first time in a French population. The current study was based on 112 mothers and their babies. Pregnant women were recruited during the 34(th) and 38(th) weeks of gestation from the Port-Royal Maternity Hospital in Paris. Social and medical data were assessed by an auto-questionnaire. Prenatal attachment was measured by the Prenatal Attachment Inventory. The translation of the scale into French followed established guidelines, including appropriate use of independent back translation. The reliability of the instrument was tested using the Cronbach alpha coefficient of internal consistency. This proved to be satisfactory for the PAI total score, i.e. 0.86. Results of a confirmatory factor analysis confirmed that the data fitted well to the one factor model of the PAI. The results of this validation show that the French version of the PAI has psychometric characteristics similar to the original version. Major limitations of the study are the small size of the sample and the impossibility to compare this scale to another tool. Thanks to this validation, a tool measuring prenatal attachment is available in French language.