Objectives: 1. To revalidate health promotion instruments for a university population a. Different Health Promotion Areas: Stress Management, Physical Fitness, and Nutrition b. Three scales for each area: Self-Efficacy, Knowledge, and Health Belief c. Psychometric estimates: content validation, internal consistency, stability, criterion-related validity, and construct validity.
2. To validate the different health promotion instruments for use with different age groups and with underserved and at risk populations.
Design: Methodological study with one time administration or instruments for testing internal consistency and test-retest for stability was used for each instrument for each health promotion area.
Population, Sample, Setting, Years: The initial instrument development and testing was done with a student population in a large private university in the northeast United States in 1985-1990. The sample size varied for stress management, physical fitness, and nutrition. For stress management self-efficacy, the one discussed in detail in this presentation, the sample was 103. The revalidation was 107.
Concept or Variables Studied together or Interventions and Outcome Variables: Instruments were developed for stress management, physical fitness, and nutrition. For each of these areas there were three variables studied: self-efficacy, knowledge, and health beliefs. The psychometric properties of theses were assessed so that they could be used in intervention programs.
Methods: Each of the scales was submitted to expert panels and the content validity index calculated. The number of items for each scale for each area ranged from 23-35 for self-efficacy, 14 for health beliefs, and 15-25 for knowledge. Instruments were then administrated to a sample to obtain the psychometric estimates. There had been many changes in the national guidelines for nutrition, for example, using the pyramid instead of the basic four-food group, and physical fitness, for example, type of activities and frequency. In addition, there are different stressors. Therefore, these scales needed to be reviewed and revised as appropriate for continued use. The same process was followed for the revalidation
Findings: The findings for the stress management self-efficacy scale have been selected for presentation in this paper. The content validity index was high for all revised instruments. The Cronbach’s alpha for the stress management self-efficacy was .94 in 1986 and .95 in 1999. Other findings were similar although not this close for the other revalidation tests with the university population. The revalidation with different age groups and the underserved and at risk populations are in progress.
Conclusions: Scales to measure self-efficacy, health beliefs, and knowledge for stress management, physical fitness, and nutrition have been revised and tested with good psychometric estimates for the university population. Validation for use with other age groups and underserved and at risk populations is in progress. Extensive work has been done, for example, related to management self-efficacy for diabetes mellitus.
Implications: Measures can be used as pre- and post-test assessment of health promotion programs. The method used for the development of scales can be used for developing scales for work with chronic illnesses. Although the process is long, quality measures of key variables are essential to evaluate effectiveness of programs.
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