Elaboration and psychometric analysis of a questionnaire to evaluate the knowledge of community health workers about breastfeeding

Abstract

Objectives: to develop and analyze the psychometric properties of a questionnaire to assess community health workers’ knowledge on breastfeeding. Methods: this is a methodological study for the development of an instrument and analysis of validity and reliability. For the elaboration of items and identification of dimen-sions, a literature review was conducted. The items were submitted to the evaluation of a committee of judges, for apparent and content analysis. Construct validation was conducted through hypothesis test, with the participation of 282 community health workers and 19 pedi-atricians and obstetric nurses. For analysis and comparison of scores, the Mann-Whitney U test was used, assuming a significance level of 5%. Reliability was assessed using Cronbach's alpha coefficient and temporal consistency of the instrument was assessed using test-retest and Kappa analysis. Results: the final instrument presented a favorable opinion from the committee of judges. The hypothesis test showed that the questionnaire has discriminatory power to assess profes-sionals with a higher level of knowledge (p<0.001). The Kappa test revealed that 63% of the items showed substantive to almost perfect agreement. The 32-item questionnaire showed a Cronbach's alpha of 0.794. Conclusion: the instrument developed was valid and reliable, allowing effective measurement of community health workers’ knowledge on breastfeeding.