Development of an Instrument to Assess Service Quality and Resource Adequacy in Midwifery Laboratories

Background: Midwifery laboratories are essential for developing clinical competencies, yet service quality and resource adequacy are frequently assessed separately. Objectives: This study aimed to develop and internally evaluate an integrated instrument for assessing midwifery laboratory quality. Methods: Five experts validated the instrument, and 446 midwifery students with laboratory experience completed a 44 item questionnaire. Psychometric evaluation included content validity, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), preliminary confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), Rasch analysis, and internal consistency testing. Results: The average scale content validity index was 0.982. EFA identified six factors explaining 56.96% of total variance, with the first factor contributing 44.02%. Preliminary CFA demonstrated X²/df = 2.240, RMSEA = 0.053, SRMR = 0.041, GFI = 0.991, CFI = 0.898, and TLI = 0.886. Rasch person reliability was 0.969, whereas item reliability was 0.641. Cronbach alpha reached 0.970, with corrected item total correlations ranging from 0.561 to 0.739. Conclusions: The instrument demonstrated promising internal psychometric properties for evaluating midwifery laboratory quality. However, independent external validation and comprehensive ordinal and Rasch diagnostics remain necessary before broader implementation.