Cultural adaptation and psychometric properties of the scale of attitudes towards conventional cigarettes among Mexican university students

Abstract

Introduction. Tobacco use among youth continues to be a public health problem. Since identifying attitudes can help understand why young people use conventional cigarettes, it is essential to have valid instruments to assess attitudes towards conventional cigarettes. Objective. To culturally adapt and analyze the psychometric properties of the scale of attitudes towards conventional cigarettes in young university students. Method. The study was conducted in two phases: it was culturally adapted to determine its linguistic validity and its psychometric properties were subsequently verified through factor analysis, Cronbach’s Alpha, McDonald’s Omega, and the ROC curve. Results. Participants included 635 university students with a mean age of 23.56 ± 5.89, 56.4% of whom were women. Exploratory analysis identified three components explaining 57.06% of the total variance of the thirteen items with high internal consistency (α = .875). Factor analysis confirmed that three factors had excellent fit indices (χ2/gl = 1.78, IFI = .98, CFI = .98, TLI = .97, RMSEA = .04 (90% CI [.028, .057]), SRMR = .03). Discussion and conclusion. The scale of attitudes towards conventional cigarettes in the Mexican population has high construct validity and reliability.