Validity and reliability of a cardiopulmonary resuscitation attitudes questionnaire among allied health profession students

Abstract

Aim: To investigate the structural validity and internal consistency of a cardiopulmonary resuscitation attitudes questionnaire among Allied Health Professions (AHP) university students. Methods: Structural validity of a 17-item questionnaire was tested using principal compo-nent analysis. A group of AHP university students completed the questionnaire. Internal consistency of the questionnaire was measured by Cronbach’s α. Results: A total of 856 AHP students completed the questionnaire (mean age= 20.8 (±1.1) years, 74.0% were females). The analysis reduced a 17-item questionnaire to an 11-item questionnaire. The final questionnaire had three distinct factors; (1) attitudes towards mouth-to-mouth ventilation (MMV), (2) attitudes towards chest compressions (CC), and (3) the importance of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). It had factor loadings ranging from 0.629 to 0.878 and could explain 66% of the variance in the attitude. The questionnaire had acceptable internal consistency (Cronbach α=0.83; 95% CI=81.5) and was feasible with no floor or ceiling effect. Conclusion: The 11-item CPR attitude questionnaire had acceptable structural validity and internal consistency and good parsimony and unidimensionality. The questionnaire can be used to measure the university students’ attitude and assess the effectiveness of CPR training activities. Future studies are required to measure the responsiveness and applicability to other cohorts.