Maternal Attitudes and Beliefs Scale: Development and Piloting

Recent research on cognitive vulnerability to postpartum depression has focused on the hypothesis of two subtypes of postpartum depression. Each is supposed to be associated to general and/or specific cognitive vulnerability. We report the development and piloting of an instrument designed to identify underlying specific beliefs related to postpartum depression, based on the Rational Emotive Behaviour Theory for psychopathology. The prenatal MABS form was piloted on 36 pregnant women and the postnatal MABS form was piloted on 32 postpartum women. Data indicates that both the prenatal and the postnatal forms of the scale are good measures of the maternal specific attitudes and beliefs during the perinatal period. Although MABS has good internal reliability and it has been validated against established psychological measures, futher research is needed.