A preliminary investigation of the grandparent support scale for teenage mothers.

Although numerous instruments are available to assess the teen mother's social support, an instrument that is more narrowly focused on the support teen mothers receive from their parents (the grandparents) is lacking. To remedy this gap, the Grandparent Support Scale for Teenage Mothers (GSSTM) was developed. The purpose of this article is to review what is known about grandparent support and describe the initial psychometric testing of the teen version of the GSSTM. Four questionnaires were completed by 72 teen mothers. Factor analysis of the GSSTM resulted in reduction of the questionnaire from 22 to 16 items and yielded three factors: Grandparent Responsiveness (alpha = .90), Grandparent as Decision Maker (alpha = .76), and Grandparent as Actor (alpha = .72). GSSTM subscales significantly correlated with the other measures, supporting their validity. Although further psychometric testing is needed with a larger sample, the GSSTM shows promise in assessing teen mothers' perceptions of family support.