Developing a Scale for Awareness of Cervical Cancer: Study of Validity and Reliability

Abstract

This study aims to develop a scale to determine women’s awareness of cervical cancer. In development of the scale. a systematic algorithm was performed. The developed scale was applied on 512 individuals and the data was collected face to face. Two groups were formed with participants (n1=256. n2=256). With the data collected from the first group. exploratory factor analysis was performed while with the data of the second group. and confirmatory factor analysis was performed. At the end of the exploratory factor analysis. it was found that the scale consisted of 18 items and three factors. The validity of the obtained construct was confirmed with confirmatory factor analysis. It was also found that the Cronbach-alpha internal consistency coefficient for the whole scale was 0.84 and the internal consistency coefficients of sub-dimensions ranged among 0.69 and 0.83. For test-retest reliability coefficient. the scale was applied on the same group at 4 week intervals and the scale-wide correlation coefficient was calculated as 0.98 while it was found to be among 0.95 and 0.97 for sub-dimensions. therefore. correlation coefficients were found to be significant. The data collected indicated the scale was valid and reliable in measuring women’s awareness of cervical cancer.