Turkish adaptation of the parental health beliefs scale

Aim. This paper reports an adaptation of the English version of the Parental Health Beliefs Scale for use with Turkish parents and an evaluation of its psychometric properties. Background. As a profession, nurses are particularly concerned with cross-cultural influences that affect the health beliefs of populations. Although the international literature describes questionnaires and specific scales in health promotion and health beliefs, adequate Turkish-language instruments are scarce. Therefore, suitable instruments need to be developed or adapted for the Turkish parents. Method. This was a psychometric study. A convenience sample (n = 257) was recruited in 2003 from parents who attended a primary healthcare centre in Erzurum, Turkey. Translation and back-translation of the original English instrument and content validation by an expert panel were the first two steps. The third step was psychometric testing of the adapted instrument to establish internal consistency, inter-item correlation and construct validity. Data were collected using the Parental Health Beliefs Scale. Socio-demographic data were also collected. The investigators visited the centre every workday, and interviewed the samples. The parents read and self-completed the questionnaire. Findings. Content validity procedure resulted in a final scale that consisted of 20 items. Cronbach's alpha was 0.75. Factor analysis yielded three factors related to chance, internality and powerful others. Conclusion. Although acceptable levels of reliability and validity of the Turkish version of the Parental Health Beliefs Scale for parents were reached, cultural factors appeared to play a role in the applicability of the scale. Further validation research is therefore needed before the scale can be recommended for use in nursing research and practice.