Development of a Help-Seeking Cognitions Scale and a Help-Seeking Skills Scale for Children and Adolescents According to the COSMIN Checklist

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to develop 2 new self-report measures for assessing help-seeking cogni- tions and help-seeking skills in children and adolescents. The goal was to develop instruments with good content validity. In the first study, 1,029 children and adolescents (ages 9-18 years) completed questionnaires describing characteristics of their help-seeking cognitions and help-seeking skills. Content analysis enabled the extraction of 18 cognition and 12 skill components, from which the first versions of the 2 scales were developed. In the second study, 9 experts evaluated the relevance and comprehensiveness of the 2 scales, after which revised versions of the scales reached consensus. In the third study, 484 children and adolescents (ages 9-18 years) evaluated the 2 scales for relevance, comprehensiveness, and comprehensibility by completing questionnaires about the content validity of the instructions, the recall period, the response options, and each item's sentences. The results from the third study showed that over 90% of the participants agreed on these aspects of the 2 scales. Thus, the revised version was determined to be the final version. The present research provided evidence of good content validity for both of the newly developed instruments.