CEQ-2 validation study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Childbirth Experience Questionnaire 2: validating its use in the United Kingdom
IRAS ID
230810
Contact name
Kate F Walker
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Nottingham
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
In the UK we do not have a robust way of measuring women’s childbirth experience. Measuring the impact of a new intervention in obstetrics on a woman’s childbirth experience is arguably as important as measuring its impact on outcomes such as caesarean delivery and yet surprisingly it is rarely done. We believe this is in part due to a lack of a robust and validated tool for measuring birth experience in the UK. Indeed the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) say such a tool is urgently required (1). The Childbirth Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) was developed and validated in Sweden (2). Establishing the validity of a questionnaire means examining whether the tool measures what it is intended to measure. When a questionnaire has been translated it is important to establish if the validity has been preserved. We validated the CEQ in the UK (3). Since then a second version (CEQ-2) has been developed to try to improve the performance of the CEQ. This second version was created to address the high ceiling effects (i.e. all subjects score highly) in two of the dimensions (professional support and participation). We have used the CEQ in a national RCT (4) to measure birth experience and found that there was no difference between the two arms of the trial, this may be due to the high ceiling effects. We need to validate the CEQ-2 in the UK to see if it is an effective tool for evaluating labour experience.
REC name
West Midlands - Edgbaston Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/WM/0326
Date of REC Opinion
3 Oct 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion