Design and Validation of a Sexual Health Literacy Questionnaire in Iranian Women

Introduction: Sexual health literacy means the knowledge, belief, attitude, motivation and skill of individuals to access, understand, evaluate and use sexual health information to make decisions about sexual health care, health promotion, communication, and wellbeing. Despite designing multiple tools and scales for measuring health literacy in Iran has not yet been designed to measure sexual health literacy in Iranian women. Therefore, this study aimed to design and psychometric evaluation of sexual health literacy tools in Iranian women.Methods: This study consisted of two parts: qualitative and quantitative. In the first stage, based on the data obtained from a qualitative study with 36 women between 18 and 65 years of age and extensive literature review the Initial items were designed. First, the qualitative and quantitative content validity (content validity index and content validity ratio) of the questionnaire was evaluated by experts and the necessary corrections were made. The face validity of the primary instrument was assessed by interviewing women. Reliability (internal consistency and instrument stability) and tool construct validity were also assessed.Results: In exploratory factor analysis, 40 items were loaded into 6 factors that showed 64.8% of the observed changes. Cronbach s alpha coefficient was acceptable for each factor. Re-test of the questionnaire with two weeks interval confirmed the stability of the questionnaire. The final questionnaire was approved by 37 items in 7 domains including access, reading, comprehension, evaluation, use, communication and empowerment as a valid and reliable tool for measuring women s sexual health literacy.Conclusion: Based on the results of confirmatory factor analysis, the designed tool for women s sexual health literacy has appropriate internal consistency and construct validity, so this scale is capable of measuring health literacy in Iranian women

کلیدواژه ها:

Health Literacy ، Questionnaire ، Psychometric ، Sexual Health