Cambridge worry scale (CWS)

Green and colleagues developed the Cambridge Worry Scale (CWS) with 17 items [11] to measure worry content among individuals. Scores are ranged from “not a worry” (0) to “major worry” (5). The total score of the CWS ranges from zero to 85, with a higher score representing the severity of worries. The CWS includes four subscales as follow: socio-medical, own health, socio-economic, and relational. The reliability of the CWS was aceptable (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.76). We translated the scale into Persian and confirmed its validity among pregnant women. The Persian version consists of 23 items and 4 factors including the socio medical (10 item)(such as “Having nobody in delivery ward”, “Giving birth”, “Whether midwives provide good care in labor”, “Going to hospital”, “Crowded delivery ward”), health of mother/other & Relationships (4 items)(i.e., “Your own health”, “The health of someone closes to you”, “Your relationship with your husband”, “Your relationship with your family and friends”), fetus health (3 items)(i.e., “The possibility of miscarriage”, “The possibility of fetal death, disease or anomaly”, “The probability of going into labor too early”) and socio-demographic factor (6 items) (such as “Money problems”, “Employment problems”). The total score of the Persian CWS ranges from zero to 115 with the median score of 37. The Cronbach’s alpha value for the 23 items of the Persian CWS was 0.886 [12]. We used the Persian version of the CWS for investigating pregnant women’s worries during the COVID-19 pandemic because we believe its items are relevant to the pregnant women’s worries during the pandemic.