The Canadian Birth Place Study: Development, Validation and Administration of a Questionnaire for Multi-disciplinary Maternity Care Providers

The debate between professional groups in Canada about the advisability of planned home birth continues. The Canadian Birth Place Study examines Canadian registered midwives', family physicians', and obstetricians' experiences with and attitudes towards planned home birth, as well as factors associated with in those attitudes. Evidence based strategies were applied to the development, validity testing, and implementation of a cross-sectional questionnaire to a multi-disciplinary sample of maternity care providers.The survey questions and attitude scale items were adapted from a previously validated questionnaire and reviewed by two discipline-specific expert panels. Experts provided qualitative comments and rated each socio-demographic and attitude item on three 4-point Likert-type scales to evaluate importance, clarity, and relevance. Aggregated scores (content validity indices) demonstrated strong content validity of items. The questionnaire construction and administration plan incorporated best practices for increasing response rates among healthcare providers, as well as participation from multiple perspectives on a controversial topic across study populations.