Paternal involvement is a multi-dimensional construct which includes direct childcare activities, indirect childcare activities, warmth and affection, sense of responsibility and discipline. Many previous paternal involvement scales only measured fathers’ direct involvement in infant care activities and failed to measure other aspects of paternal involvement (e.g. emotional care, indirect care and responsibility). While a previous scale has developed a multidimensional paternal involvement scale, it was development in a Western context. As the role of fatherhood is deeply shaped by one’s culture, the Paternal Involvement in Early Infancy Scale (PEACE) was developed as a culturally congruent instrument to measure paternal involvement among Asian fathers. The scale is available upon request.

The EFA and CFA results suggested that the 25-item PEACE comprised five related but independent subscales that measured different dimensions of paternal involvement: Providing Tangible Support, Meeting Basic Needs, Bonding with Baby, Decision-Making for Baby, and Sense of Responsibility and Accomplishment.

Psychometric Testing of PEACE

Content validity index (CVI): Mean CVI of 0.98 for relevancy of items and mean CVI of 0.95 for clarity of items

Internal consistency for the 5 subscales

• Providing Tangible Support (5 items): Cronbach α of 0.85-0.87
• Meeting Basic Needs (6 items): Cronbach α of 0.84-0.89
• Bonding with Baby (5 items): Cronbach α of 0.92
• Decision-Making for Baby (4 items): Cronbach α of 0.83-0.84
• Sense of Responsibility and Accomplishment (5 items): Cronbach α of 0.85-0.89

Test-retest reliability: Intra-class correlation (ICC) coefficient of 0.4-0.7

Correlation coefficients between the PEACE subscales and a previously validated paternal involvement scale confirmed the concurrent validity of the PEACE

Correlation coefficients between the PEACE subscales and other scales that measured theoretically related measures of paternal involvement (parenting self-efficacy, parent-child bonding, parenting satisfaction, and depression) confirmed the convergent validity of the PEACE

Access and Use of PEACE Scale

The PEACE scale is free to use. You may click here to download the scale.

Please acknowledge the use of this scale by using the following citation: Chua, J. Y. X., Chan, Y. H., & Shorey, S. (2024). Development of the Paternal Involvement in Early Infancy Scale (PEACE) for fathers in Singapore. Journal of Pediatric Nursing, 79, 213-224.