Development and psychometric evaluation of a Comprehensive Patient-Reported Postpartum Health Scale (CPR-PPHS) for Indian women-Mixed method study design

Postpartum period is the period right after birth to a duration of 6 months to 1 year when the women’s body starts returning to its pre-pregnancy physiological and anatomical condition.A mother, during the postpartum period, bears a double burden of physical changes and psychosocial factors.The additional responsibility of providing appropriate care to the newborn, inadequate sleep, fatigue, and less time for self care while satisfying the basic role toward the family members, may lead to emotional letdown and depressive symptoms among mothers , contributing to poor Quality of life which eventually might have impact on their functioning and health.

Assessment is an inseparable part of effective & efficient management.Patient–reported outcome reflects a shift to a more patient centric model of health care delivery and provides information that is of value to both the patient and the therapist.Outcome from the person’s perspective is increasingly being recognised as pivotal in understanding the impact of an disease or condition on the individual and has a direct influence on the clinical decision-making process.

Postpartum health and function is still not clearly defined and also systematic reviews (2022,2021) conducted on the use of outcome measures to assess postpartum health and recovery have stated a need to systematically develop and validate a robust patient reported outcome measure to assess postpartum health . Studies evaluating overall health during the postpartum period in India have been very limited because of the lack of availability of a validated instrument.Also, as with many other outcome measures , the postpartum assessment is mainly focused based on the Western population and their cultural factors, which is being followed by us. There is also a lack of an outcome measure that assess all the domains of postpartum health considering the cultural and contextual factors with respect to the Indian population.

Hence, in the view of the existing gaps in assessment of postpartum health , there is a need to develop and psychometrically evaluate a Comprehensive Patient Reported Postpartum Health Scale (CPR-PPHS) for Indian Women keeping in mind the biopsychosocial model which in future would help physiotherapists  target overall  postpartum health thus enhancing the efficiency of the management practices.