Pilot Testing: HIV Knowledge, Knowledge of Risk Behaviors, and Willingness to Be Tested Assessment Instruments

Purpose: Providing cost effective, evidence based, targeted health promotion education within the faith based organization may be the best, most appropriate way to access and encourage many black women to attend a Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) prevention program and start a candid, open dialogue about the prevalence, transmission risk factors, and ways to decrease the acquisition of HIV. Based on numerous studies, retention is an issue when conducting multiple session community based health interventions. A single session intervention using the best targeted intervention may provide the basic knowledge and strategies to black women in an environment and a timeframe that may accommodate busy schedules and other priorities. For this pilot study, the preliminary testing of validity and reliability of three instruments include HIV Knowledge Assessment, Knowledge of Sexual Risk Behaviors Assessment, and Willingness to be Tested Assessment Tools.

Methods: A preliminary study was completed to determine the reliability of the instruments. Participants included 55 senior nursing students enrolled in the Population Health course. The researcher informed participants that they must be over 18 years of age. The researcher presented the rationale, and informed students that their participation was completely voluntary. Students were informed that they could withdraw from participation at any time. The researcher distributed and read the consent forms. The participants reviewed and signed the consent form. Instruments were then distributed to the class for completion. Once completed the participants returned the completed instruments directly to the investigator.

Results:

Prior to the preliminary testing, content validity was established. All participants completed the abbreviated demographic questions and the three newly developed instruments in under 15 minutes.

The HIV Knowledge Assessment Tool produced a Cronbach’s alpha of .396. This was based on eight items since two items were answered correctly by all participants in the preliminary study and therefore have zero variance. The HIV Knowledge Assessment Tool produced a KR-20 of 0.371. The KR-20 would increase to .481 with the deletion of one question.

The Knowledge of Sexual Risk Behaviors Assessment Tool produced a Cronbach’s alpha of .671 for the 14 items in the preliminary study. This was based on 11 items since 3 items were answered correctly by all participants in the preliminary study and therefore have zero variance. This meets the reliability coefficient of .70 for a newly developed instrument, as defined by Burns and Grove (2009). The Knowledge of Sexual Risk Behaviors Assessment Tool produced a KR-20 of 0.657. KR-20 scores are 0-1, with scores above .50 being acceptable for teacher made tests. The KR-20 would increase to .672 with the deletion of one question.

No reliability statistics could be performed on The Willingness to be Tested Assessment Tool since this was a two question instrument and each item was unrelated.

Conclusion: The newly developed instruments show promise. With deletion of the above noted questions and further study, these instruments could be used by the health care system and community based nursing to determine HIV knowledge, knowledge of sexual risk behaviors and willingness to be tested for HIV.