ArticleArchives of women's mental health2026
The tokophobia severity scale: a psychometric multicountry study with childbearing-age women.
Article in Archives of women's mental health, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
14 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeTokophobia refers to a clinically significant fear of childbirth that affects women across the reproductive lifespan. Given its prevalence and association with adverse mental health, obstetric, and reproductive decision-making outcomes, valid and reliable measures are essential to identify women at risk of tokophobia.
methodsTokophobia Severity Scale (TSS) psychometric properties were analyzed in nulliparous non-pregnant, pregnant, and women in the postpartum using data from cross-sectional and longitudinal studies conducted in four countries: Australia, Lithuania, Poland, and Portugal. Sample (n = 1,585) comprised nulliparous non-pregnant (Poland, n = 559), pregnant (Lithuania, n = 197, Portugal, n = 353), and women at two months postpartum (Australia, n = 292; Lithuania, n = 184). Participants completed the TSS, and self-reported questionnaires on sociodemographic, obstetric, fetal/neonatal, mental health-related characteristics, depressive and anxiety symptoms, birth trauma perception, and another measure of fear of childbirth (FOC).
resultsResults supported a three-factor model: fear, coping, and intrusive thoughts. Invariance was found across childbearing-age periods and countries. Cronbach's alpha and McDonald's omega coefficients for the TSS total score were 0.89-0.90. Known-group validity was established with differences in sociodemographic, obstetric, fetal/neonatal, and mental health-related characteristics. Concurrent validity was found with depressive and anxiety symptoms, and birth trauma perception. Convergent validity was found with another FOC measure. TSS scores in pregnancy predicted elective cesarean section, birth trauma perception, and postpartum depressive and anxiety symptoms. TSS discriminates women with or without clinically significant tokophobia symptoms in childbearing-age periods and countries.
conclusionsTSS is a psychometrically strong measure that can be used to screen clinically significant tokophobia symptoms.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.