Cross-cultural equivalence and psychometric proprieties of the social support scale for healthy eating habits

Abstract

ABSTRACT Objective: To assess the cross-cultural equivalence and psychometric proprieties of the Brazilian version of the Eating Habits Social Support Scale. Methods: The scale was administered to 381 subjects aged 24 to 86 years from Recife and Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Cross-cultural equivalence was evaluated by expert agreement. The psychometric proprieties were assessed by factor validity (factor analysis), internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha), and reproducibility (intraclass correlation coefficient), using a test-retest with an interval of seven days. Results: Factor analysis identified two factors for each social support group (friends and family). The questions were clustered by type of social support (positive or negative comments). The eigenvalues for family social support were 3.22 and 3.00, corresponding to 62.2% of the total variance. For friend social support, the eigenvalues were 3.02 and 2.95, explaining 59.7% of the total variance. In the internal consistency analysis, the alpha values ranged from 0.83 to 0.75. The reproducibility intraclass correlation coefficient ranged from 0.676 to 0.873. All these values were acceptable, indicating the validity and reliability of the scale. Conclusion: The Brazilian version of the Eating Habits Social Support Scale presented cross-cultural equivalence and psychometric characteristics that were appropriate for Brazilian adults and older adults. This scale is easy to use and obtained high scores for question clarity and answer options.