Can We Create A Reliable and Valid Short Form of Champion Health Belief Model Questionnaire?

Background: We aimed to create a shortened form of the Champion HealthBelief Model instrument which is a widely used questionnaire about breast cancerscreening behaviors with acceptable validity and reliability.Methods: The Persian version of the Champion Health Belief Model (CHBM)instrument consists of ۵۷ items in ۸ concepts. The subjects of the study were ۴۰female faculty members and ۳۴ nurses of Tehran University of Medical Sciences in۲۰۱۴. Based on the results, the most influential questions in each concept were chosenand then analyzed for internal consistency and the mean scores of the concepts werecompared to the original questionnaire. Next, the original form was delivered to adifferent population. The mean scores of each concept were compared betweenoriginal and short forms. At last, the same second population was asked to fill in theshortened form in a two-week interval and a test re-test comparison was done.Results: In the first step, out of ۵۷ items in the original questionnaire, ۲۸ itemswere selected based on their influence on the mean score of each concept. In ۴۰female faculty members who were all above ۴۰, all of the Cronbach’s alphas for allsubscales were above ۰.۶ (ranging from ۰.۶۲۴ to ۰.۸۳۰) in the shortened formquestionnaire; although they were lower than the original form. There were nosignificant differences between short and original questionnaires in terms of meansubscale scores. In the second step, in the second population including ۳۴ femalenurses aged over forty years in a university medical center, there was again nosignificant statistical difference between the ۲۸-item and ۵۷-item instruments. Inthe third step, two weeks later, the completed shortened questionnaire among ۲۰subjects of the same population of the nurses showed similar results, indicating thereliability of the newly design shortened form of the questionnaire.Conclusions: The shortened ۲۸-item form of the CHBM instrument seems tobe both valid and reliable, and less time-consuming. Its results can be comparableto other studies that used the standard form.

Keywords:

Breast cancer , health belief , reliability , validity