Development of an attitude scale for cancer screening

Abstract

OBJECTIVE This study aims to develop a scale to measure people’s attitudes towards cancer screening and conduct a pilot study and validity-reliability study of the developed scale. METHODS This methodological study was conducted on 334 voluntary male and female relatives of patient who were between 30-70 years of age and attend family health centers at Meram district of Konya province. A sociodemographic form and a candidate scale were used for data collection. Data analysis was performed in a computer setting. RESULTS The study group of 334 participants consisted of 50% males and 50% females, and the mean age was 42.93±9.60 years. Four items with item score-scale score correlation less than ±0.200 were excluded from the 28-item candidate scale. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the 24-item scale was calculated as 0.95. Face and content validity of the scale was evaluated with two different groups. Factor analysis that was used to assess the construct validity of the one-dimensional 24-item scale determined that explained the variance ratio was 52.62%. CONCLUSION As a result of our study, a new five-point Likert scale called “Attitude Scale for Cancer Screening” has been developed. Validity and reliability studies of the scale suggest that the scale is suitable for use in our society.