Adaptation of the Social Support from Parents and Friends Scale (AFA-R) as a measure of social partner support in Mexican pregnant women

Background and aims
Social support represents a protective factor for pregnant women, contributing to the favorable coping of stressors. Hence the importance of a partner's social support, since their involvement promotes a woman's adaptation to pregnancy, affecting her physical and psychological health. The objective of the study was to adapt and evaluate the internal structure of the AFA-R scale as a measure of family and partner's social support.

Material and methods
Two hundred and eighty fourMexican pregnant women participated. Sampling for convenience was performed in health sector clinics. Internal consistency analysis, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) (n=100) and confirmatory analysis (CFA) (n=184) were performed.

Results
An alpha of .927 was obtained, and evidence for criteria validity was assessed with stress measures (rs=-.391) and anxiety (rs=-.401) The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) determined a bifactorial structure that explains 68.07% of the variance. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) showed good composite reliability (CR>.8) and an adequate average variance was extracted (AAV>.5) from both latent variables.

Conclusions
The bifactorial structure is confirmed to assess family and partner's social support in pregnant women with the AFA-R's adapted version.