Construcción y evaluación de pauta de medición de riesgo relacional madre-recién nacido / Construction and assessment of a scale to measure mother-newborn relationship risk

The purpose of this work was to construct and assess a scale aimed to detect risky relationship between mothers and newborns that could predict future child abuse and neglect. The instrument was applied in 2 opportunities, by a trained midwife and by expert in mental health, to a sample of 106 mother-newborn dyads. When both assessments were compared, the concordance to assess relationship risk was 99.3 percent. The reliability of the scale, measured with the Crombach, a internal consistence index, was 0.88. Those items with a low discriminative capacity were eliminated. The massive use of the resultant scale, that is easy to apply and highly reliable, could help to prevent child abuse and neglect