Development of a Scale to Measure Reproductive Health Promoting Behavior of Undergraduates

Abstract

Objectives: This study was to develop a reliable and valid instrument measuring the reproductive health promoting behavior of undergraduates. Methods: The initial questionnaires were made of 106 items from four domains through literature review. All questionnaire items were revised by an expert group and a pilot test. Data were collected using the revised initial questionnaire of men’s 58 items and female’s 64 items from 634 male and 685 female undergraduate students. The collected questionnaires were analyzed by factor analysis using varimax rotation to evaluate the construct validity. Results: According to the gender, two measurement were invented and analysed separately. Four common factors consisting of "safe sex", "sexual responsibility", "genital health management" and "STD prevention" were discovered in both groups. The "genital hygiene" factor was added as a female factor. Male students" scale was made up 4 factors 16 items and female students" scale was made up 5 factors 18 items. Cronbach"s alpha for male scale was estimated to be .892 and female scale to be .882. Conclusions: This scale will make it possible to measure the level of reproductive health among Korean university students. This scale may be useful for developing effective methods of education as well as policy programs for improving the reproductive health of Korean university students.