Design and validation of a questionnaire to assess health habits of school children aged 8-12D
Abstract
Introduction: Being over weight and obesity are currently serious public health problems in Mexico, particularly in childhood. According to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (ENSANUT, 2012), obesity is a multifactorial disease in which genetic, environmental and lifestyle issues are involved. To prevent and treat obesity lifestyle should be altered through health promotion and education. To change the habits of the population, first they need to be recognised, then strategies to modify them developed. Presently, there are no questionnaires to identify healthy habits in school children in our area.
Objective: To design and evaluate the reliability and validity of a questionnaire that assesses health habits in children.
Methods: 417 schoolchildren undertook the questionnaire. Measures of central tendency and dispersion for domains and groups were used; internal consistency using Cronbach's alpha and interscalar correlation.
Results: It was found that the 27 items in the 2 domains exceeded the suggested standard of reliability (Cronbach α) greater than 0.50. Acceptable correlation was found in the different dimensions of the questionnaire (total vs. domains). The test-retest stability was higher than 0.75 in both dimensions; in analyses performed on validity (content and construct) the results were satisfactory.
Conclusions: The version of the questionnaire met the criteria of internal consistency and content validity and construct. These results show that the proposed questionnaire can be used as a tool to assess lifestyle in school children.
