Construction, validation and reliability of an instrument that measures the intention of the preconception counseling of physicians at the first level of care

Abstract

Background: There is evidence that the preconception advice given by the doctor to women planning a pregnancy reduces the risk of maternal-fetal complications, however, this is not carried out routinely. There is no instrument that measures the intention of the physician to give preconception advice that is valid and reliable. Objective: To construct, assess the validity and reliability of an instrument that measures the intention of preconception counseling based on the theory of planned behavior in first-level physicians. Material and methods: Instrumental study of construction, assessment of validity and reliability of an instrument. Convenience sampling, to all the doctors of Family Medicine Unit # 1. Descriptive statistics were used, content validity with the Delphi method; apparent validity with focus group methodology, construct validity with exploratory factor analysis; Criterion validity with Spearman's correlation and reliability with Cronbach's Alpha. STATA version 13 was used and for the qualitative analysis Atlas.ti version 8. Results: The construct validity showed a variance >17.42% per dimension and >78% per domain. Criterion validity presented a moderate-high correlation. The global reliability of the instrument was 0.9528. Conclusions: The instrument created had the psychometric properties that make it valid and reliable. Keywords: Preconception counseling, Theory of planned behavior, validation of an instrument