Construction and Validation of Breast Cancer Awareness Scale in Iranian Women

Introduction: Application of a single valid and reliable questionnaire in future studies in the area of Iranian women's awareness of breast cancer provides the health policymakers with a comprehensive view over the issue. In designing the current questionnaires in Iran, the prior researchers neither explained about the design procedure, nor calculated the validity and reliability of the questionnaire completely. In this regard, researchers decided to design a standard questionnaire to examine women's awareness about the symptoms and risk factors of the breast cancer.

Methods: This methodological study was conducted on 250 women in Yazd. Data were collected by a researcher-made questionnaire. The reliability was determined using the Cronbach’s alpha and test-retest method. Factor analysis was used to determine the construct validity in SPSS ver. 21.

Results: The face validity of the questionnaire was evaluated by the target population. The results of the impact score indicated that all questions had a score equal or greater than 1.5. The qualitative content validity of the questionnaire was evaluated by the expert panel. CVR and CVI obtained close to one for questionnaire. Construct validity was confirmed by performing factor analysis and dimensions of the questionnaire were determined. Cronbach's alpha coefficient for all dimensions was higher than 0.8. Also, ICC for all dimensions was close to one and was between 0.84-0.95.

Conclusion: Validity and reliability of designed questionnaire in this study for Iranian women are acceptable and suitable.