Psychometric evaluation of the Chinese version of the quality of life in pregnancy scale (PREG-QOL): a translation and validation study

The purpose of this study was to translate the quality of life in pregnancy scale (PREG-QOL) from English to Chinese and examine its reliability and validity among pregnant women. This study adhered strictly to Brislin’s translation model for cross-cultural adaptation and translation. The Chinese version of the Quality of Life in Pregnancy Scale was formed through a pre-test, involving 823 pregnant women in the methodological investigation. Item analysis was employed to screen scale items, while internal consistency reliability, split-half reliability, and test–retest reliability were used to assess the scale’s reliability. Content validity, exploratory factor analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis were utilized to validate the scale. The Chinese version comprised 25 items across five dimensions: Perception of general satisfaction, physical domain, social domain, social support domain, and emotional domain. The overall Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.902, with dimension-specific alpha values ranging from 0.832 to 0.920. The split-half reliability of the scale was 0.836, and its retest reliability was 0.854. The exploratory factor analysis showed that the KMO value was 0.898, and the Bartlett's spherical test X2 value was 4269.162 (p < 0.001). In the validation factor analysis, the model fit results were X2 / df = 1.253, RMSEA = 0.025, CFI = 0.984, GFI = 0.984, IFI = 0.984, TLI = 0.981, NFI = 0.924, and AGFI = 0.923, indicating excellent model fit. The composite reliability of the dimensions ranged from 0.775 to 0.911, the average variance extracted ranged from 0.503 to 0.535. The correlation coefficient between each dimension and other dimensions was less than the square root of the AVE for that dimension. The Chinese version of the PREG-QOL demonstrates satisfactory reliability and validity, which is suitable for assessing the quality of life among pregnant women in China.