Abstract
Background: Maternal self-efficacy is one of the main predictors of breastfeeding continuation during the first six months. The Prenatal Breastfeeding Self-Efficacy Scale (PBSES) is a validated tool to measure pregnant women’s breastfeeding confidence, yet it lacked an Italian version at the time of assessment. This study aimed to translate and culturally adapt the PBSES into Italian, providing the basis for future psychometric validation and its potential use in identifying women at risk of early discontinuation of exclusive breastfeeding.
Methods: The PBSES instrument followed the World Health Organization (WHO) translation guidelines, which included forward translation, expert panel review, back translation and pre-testing with cognitive interviews. Sixty pregnant women joined the study through online recruitment to evaluate both understanding and cultural appropriateness.
Results: 10 out of 20 items of the PBSES needed minor modifications for cultural adaptation, which included simplification of terms and the clarification of ambiguous concepts. The final Italian version demonstrated high comprehension and conceptual equivalence with the original scale.
Conclusions: The final version of the PBSES developed in this study provides a foundational instrument that, following psychometric validation in the Italian population, could serve as an evidence-based tool for healthcare professionals to identify women at high risk of premature breastfeeding cessation during antenatal care.