Translation and validation of the Breastfeeding Motivation Scale in China

Background There are several versions of the Breastfeeding Motivation Scale (BMS), which have been shown to measure maternal breastfeeding motivation, but there is not a Chinese version yet. The study aimed to translate the BMS into Chinese and subsequently assess its psychometric properties among Chinese mothers during the postpartum period. Methods The study was composed of two phases. The translation of BMS closely followed the principals of good practices. Phase 1 included a comprehensive translation, back-translation, cross-cultural adaptation, and pretest to develop the Chinese version of the BMS. From 1 December 2021 to 1 July 2022, the Chinese version of the BMS was administered to 206 postnatal mothers in our maternity wards to assess its psychometric properties. Phase 2 involved psychometric property testing, including testing of the internal consistency, test-retest reliability, content validity, construct validity, convergent validity and discriminant validity. Results Minor modifications in four items were recommended after translations. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient of the Chinese version of the BMS was .887, and the intraclass correlation coefficient was .897 (P < 0.001). The model fit was acceptable (chi 2/df = 2.40, P < 0.001, RMSEA = 0.08, CFI = 0.91, IFI = 0.92 and TLI = 0.90) according to the confirmatory factor analysis. The composite reliability values corresponding to each latent variable were 0.733 similar to 0.926, and the average variance extracted values were 0.476 similar to 0.653. The correlations among the five measured variables were all lower than .85 and the square roots of average variance extracted from the variable were greater than the interconstruct correlations among the five measured variables in the model. Conclusions The Chinese version of the BMS has good reliability and validity and provides a reliable assessment tool for measuring maternal breastfeeding motivation. It also provides support to develop culturally sensitive interventions for Chinese mothers' who are breastfeeding.