title: Measuring maternal sensitivity in teen mothers: reliability and feasibility of two instruments.
abstract: This study's purpose was to compare the reliability and feasibility of two instruments measuring maternal sensitivity in adolescent mothers-the Maternal Sensitivity Q-Sort (MBQS) and the Ainsworth Maternal Sensitivity Scale (AMSS). After 2, 4, and 6 hours of home observations, 2 raters completed the MBQS and the AMSS on 10 adolescent mothers. The intraclass correlations for interrater reliability of the MBQS and AMSS were .80 and .81, respectively. There was no significant difference in raters' scores among times 1, 2, or 3 for either instrument, implying that perhaps only 2 hours of observation is required. Training times for the MBQS and AMSS were 15 hours and 13 hours, respectively. Completion time for the MBQS averaged 59 minutes compared to 5 minutes for the AMSS. At a pay rate of $12/hour for one rater, completion of 30 visits costs $354 for the MBQS compared to $30 for the AMSS. There was magnitude bias in both instruments such that the lower the sensitivity score, the greater was the difference in ratings. Results suggest that while both tools are equally reliable, the AMSS is the most cost-effective and time-efficient. Agreement among raters leads only to reliability, not validity. Testing needs to be done on a larger sample of adolescents to further evaluate reliability as well as the relative validity of the measures.
authors.affiliation: Texas Women's University, Denton, TX, USA. astiles@mail.twu.edu
authors.forename: Anne Scott
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Stiles
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008425:Maternal Behavior; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology*; D009769:Object Attachment; D015588:Observer Variation; D011779:Q-Sort; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014481:United States