. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2012 Mar 1.

Published in final edited form as: J Midwifery Womens Health. 2011 Mar;56(2):118–126. doi: 10.1111/j.1542-2011.2010.00023.x

Table One.

Characteristics and Psychometric Properties of Study Instruments

Instrument	A Measure of	# of Items	Cronbach’s Alpha
Perceived Stress Scale (PSS)	Perceived degree of feeling that life is unpredictable, uncontrollable, overwhelming, in a global sense in the past month	10	.91
Centers for Epidemiological Studies – Depression (CES-D)	Measures depression over the previous week	20	.93
Pregnancy Specific Anxiety (PSA)	Level of context specific anxiety, how anxious, concerned, afraid, or panicky in the past week	4	.79
Life Orientation Test – Revised (LOT-R)	Generalized expectancy of a positive outcome (optimism)	12	.79
Norbeck Social Support Questionnaire (NSSQ)	Quantity and quality of social support structures	9
Emotional			.91
Tangible			.94
Brief COPE (14 subscales)	Coping responses to stress, such as use of distraction, acceptance, prayer, problem solving, self-blame, social support, substances, denial, etc.	28	.5–.93