Design of a questionnaire for evaluating the quality of life of postpartum women (PQOL) in China

To design an instrument for measuring quality of life (QOL) of postpartum women in China 0-12 months after delivery. A standardized procedure included the following activities: (1) item pool development by in-depth interview and focus group discussion with postpartum women, consultation with experts, participant observation, and literature review; (2) item pool modification by experts and postpartum women; (3) item selection used multiple methods including expert scoring, factor analysis, coefficient of variation, item-removed Cronbach's alpha, item-expected domain correlation, item-unexpected domain correlation and test-retest correlation analysis, based on the data of item pool test among women at 0-12 months after childbirth and maternal health experts. More than 167 items were generated, of which 101 were considered suitable for the questionnaire pool. Ten experts and 15 women then revised them. The 101-revised-item pool was tested on 200 women and ten experts scored the importance of each item. Based on these data, 40 items referring to child care, physical function, psychological function, and social support were selected for the final questionnaire. This was the first questionnaire for evaluating postpartum QOL of women in China. We need to do additional fieldwork to further establish its validity and reliability.