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Development and Validation of the Maternal Drinking Motives Scale (M-DMS)

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posted on 2025-05-09, 04:20 authored by Paul Christiansen, Sally HuntSally Hunt, Andrew Jones, Abigail K. Rose
Background: Alcohol use is a gendered behavior and motherhood is a life stage which may influence drinking motives. However, there are no drinking motive scales uniquely tailored to maternal populations. This work developed a new maternal drinking motives scale (M-DMS) and determined associations between the M-DMS and alcohol-related behavior. Methods: An online observational survey (n = 534) and online test–retest survey (n = 164) were conducted with adult, UK mothers. From the observational study, data on drinking motives was extracted to determine M-DMS items and factor loading. This was split into two data sets for exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) and Timeline Follow back data, taken from both surveys, were combined to determine the M-DMS’s predictive validity. Results: Following a parallel analysis and exploratory factor analysis, a two-factor model (positive reinforcement motives, negative reinforcement motives) was deemed the best fit. Probability functional analysis identified items with problematic responses. These were removed before confirmatory factor analysis (on the second dataset) demonstrated a good fit for the two-factor model. All factor loadings were significant and positive (βs > 0.56). Reliability of the two subscales was excellent: negative reinforcement (ωT = 0.95), positive reinforcement (ωT = 0.89). Test–retest reliability was good for both negative (ICC = 0.84, 95%CI = 0.80–0.88) and positive (ICC = 0.77, 95% CI = 0.71–0.82) subscales. Both subscales predicted AUDIT and quantity of alcohol consumption (ps < 0.001). Conclusion: The first tailored Maternal Drinking Motives Scale (M-DMS) provides a more valid research tool for assessing psychological mechanisms of alcohol use in mothers.

History

Journal title

Substance Use and Misuse

Volume

59

Issue

12

Pagination

1743-1750

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Language

  • en, English

College/Research Centre

College of Engineering, Science and Environment

School

School of Psychological Sciences

Rights statement

© 2024 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.