Validity and reliability of an equity in health care scale

Abstract

The objective of this article was to describe and validate psychometric properties of a Likert-type scale to assess the perception of equity in health care, characterize equity in health care of users in the district of Vila Real, and analyze the factors that determine equity in health care in the district of Vila Real. The study was developed in a district of the northern interior of Portugal, with 6,113 participants. We resorted to Cronbach’s alpha and also Pearson’s correlation to validate the scale. The Cronbach’s alpha of the scale is adequate, showing a good internal consistency, and the most appointed factors as being influential on equity are age, geographical distance, and socioeconomic resources. The proposed scale was found to perform well, measuring these participants’ perception on the equity to access in health care, which can contribute to identify the key determinants appointed by the population as generators of inequity, leading to the implementation of measures.