Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T05:12:16.292Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Reliability and Validity of the Bethlem Mother–Infant Interaction Scale

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Andrew J. Stocky ,
Bruce J. Tonge  and
Russell J. Nunn
Andrew J. Stocky*
Affiliation:
Monash University Centre for Developmental Psychiatry
Bruce J. Tonge
Affiliation:
Monash University Centre for Developmental Psychiatry
Russell J. Nunn
Affiliation:
Monash University Centre for Developmental Psychiatry
*
Dr A. J. Stocky, Director, Mother–Baby Unit, Department of Adult Psychiatry, Monash Medical Centre, Locked Bag 29, Clayton 3168, Victoria, Australia
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Background

The Bethlem Scale was designed as a validated measure of mother–infant adjustment in mother–baby units.

Method

A multi-centre trial was conducted to investigate aspects of the reliability, validity and clinical usefulness of the Bethlem Mother–infant Interaction Scale within five in-patient psychiatric mother–baby units.

Results

This revealed good inter-rater, test-retest and inter-item reliability. Correlations of the scale items with psychiatrist's ratings and changes in scoring over time suggest reasonable validity, despite some design problems with individual items.

Conclusion

Mother–infant interaction scales may have an important role in improving the quality of care for mothers and their babies in the psychiatric setting. The development of a more extensive scale, the Monash Mother–infant Interaction Scale, is discussed.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 169 , Issue 1 , July 1996 , pp. 27 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ainworth, M. D. (1964) Patterns of attachment behavior shown by the infant in interaction with his mother. Merrill Palmer Quarterly, 10, 51–58.Google Scholar
Ainworth, M. D. & Bell, S. M. (1969) Some contemporary patterns of mother–infant interaction in the feeding situation. In Stimulation in Early Infancy (ed. Ambrose, A.). London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Brockington, I. F., Lernick, K., Scolfield, E., et al (1981) Puerperal psychoses: phenomena and diagnosis. Archives of General Psychiatry, 38, 829–833.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dunn, G. (1989) Design and Analysis of Reliability Studies. NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McNeil, T. F., Naslund, B., Persson-Blennow, I., et al (1985) Offspring of women with nonorganic psychosis: mother–infant interaction at three-and-a-half and six months of age. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 71, 551–558.Google Scholar
Main, T. (1948) Mothers and children in psychiatric hospitals. Lancet, 11, 845.Google Scholar
Margison, F. & Brockington, E. F. (1982) Psychiatric mother and baby units. In Motherhood and Mental Illness (eds Brockington, I. & Kumar, R.), pp. 223–238. London: Grune and Strattan.Google Scholar
Melhuish, E., Gambles, G. & Kumar, R. (1988) Maternal mental illness and the mother-infant relationship. In Motherhood and Mental Illness Vol 2. (eds Kumar, R. & Brockington, I.), pp. 191–211. London: Butterworths.Google Scholar
Murray, L. & Stein, A. (1989) The effects of postnatal depression on the infant Baillière's Clinical Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 3, 921–933.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Naslund, B., Persson-Blennow, I., McNeil, T. F., et al (1985) Offspring of women with nonorganic psychosis: mother–infant interaction at three and six weeks of age. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 71, 441–450.Google Scholar
Persson-Blennow, I., Naslund, B., McNeil, T. F., et al (1984) Offspring of women with nonorganic psychosis: Mother–infant interaction at three days of age. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 70, 149–159.Google Scholar
Stavig, G. R. (1984) Monotonic measures of agreement for ranked data. British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology, 37, 283–287.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.