Fertility Social Mentality Scale for Women of Childbearing Age: a scale development study

Objective To develop a scale to measure fertility social mentality among women of childbearing age in China and to assess its psychometric properties, including reliability, validity, and measurement invariance. Methods A total of 496, 857, 607, 632 and 362 women of childbearing age were recruited to conduct exploratory factor analysis, reliability and validity testing, and measurement invariance testing, respectively. Results The Fertility Social Mentality Scale for Women of Childbearing Age comprises 27 items and consists of three factors: fertility social values, fertility social cognition, and fertility social emotions. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated a good fit of the three-factor structural model [ χ 2 / df = 3.735, CFI = 0.918, TLI = 0.910, SRMR = 0.065, RMSEA = 0.056 (90% CI: 0.053–0.060)]. The average variance extracted (AVE) values were 0.444, 0.466, and 0.509, respectively. Discriminant validity analysis showed that the correlation coefficients among dimensions were all lower than the square roots of the AVE. Criterion analysis revealed that the total score of the scale and its individual dimensions were significantly positively correlated with fertility efficacy and fertility behavior, with correlation coefficients ranging from 0.468 to 0.727 and from 0.403 to 0.551, respectively. The Cronbach’s α coefficients for the total scale and the three factors were 0.924, 0.897, 0.871, and 0.892, respectively. The composite reliability (CR) values ranged from 0.765 to 0.809. The test–retest reliability coefficients for the total scale and each dimension were 0.953, 0.949, 0.924, and 0.890, respectively. Conclusion The developed Fertility Social Mentality Scale for Women of Childbearing Age shows encouraging evidence of structural validity, internal consistency, test–retest reliability, and measurement invariance. The scale may serve as a preliminary instrument for assessing fertility social mentality among women of childbearing age in China.