title: [Mother-child bonding assessment tools].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To identify and describe research tools used to evaluate bonding between mother and child up to one year of age, as well as to provide information on reliability and validity measures related to these tools.
  
  
  METHODS
  Research studies available on PUBMED, LILACS, ScienceDirect, PsycINFO and CINAHL databases with the following descriptors: mother-child relations and mother infant relationship, as well as the expressions validity, reliability and scale.
  
  
  RESULTS
  23 research studies were selected and fully analyzed. Thirteen evaluation research tools were identified concerning mother and child attachment: seven scales, three questionnaires, two inventories and one observation method. From all tools analyzed, the Prenatal Attachment Inventory presented the higher validity and reliability measures to assess mother and fetus relation during pregnancy. Concerning the puerperal period, better consistency coefficients were found for Maternal Attachment Inventory and Postpartum Bonding Questionnaire. Besides, the last one revealed a higher sensibility to identify amenable and severe disorders in the affective relations between mother and child.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The majority of research tools are reliable to study the phenomenon presented, although there are some limitations regarding the construct and criterion related to validity. In addition to this, only two of them are translated into Portuguese and adapted to women and children populations in Brazil, being a decisive gap to scientific production in this area.
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE), Recife, PE, Brasil. Electronic address: jaquelinealbuquerqueufpe@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Jaqueline Galdino Albuquerque
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Perrelli
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE), Recife, PE, Brasil.
authors.forename: Carla Fonseca
authors.initials: CF
authors.lastname: Zambaldi
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE), Recife, PE, Brasil.
authors.forename: Amaury
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cantilino
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE), Recife, PE, Brasil.
authors.forename: Everton Botelho
authors.initials: EB
authors.lastname: Sougey
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D033261:Maternal-Fetal Relations; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D009769:Object Attachment; D011247:Pregnancy; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: Comportamento materno; Maternal behavior; Mother-child relations; Relações mãe-filho; Reproducibility of results; Reprodutibilidade dos testes