Iranian version of Form B of the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scales among the youth.

AIMS

The purpose of this study was to translate the Form B of Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scales into Persian and then to measure its psychometric characteristics among the Iranian youth.

BACKGROUND

The Health Locus of Control is regarded as an effective variable in developing health behaviours, clinical capacities and in determining health problems. Many studies have been conducted on Form B in the world, which have led to valuable results in health behaviours, health outcomes and health cares.

DESIGN

Questionnaire survey.

METHODS

Undergraduate students (n=448) participated in this study. The reliability of the scale was calculated through three methods of estimating reliability, namely, test-retest, parallel forms and Cronbach's alpha. To calculate the validity of the scale, we used content, concurrent, construct and predictive methods.

RESULTS

We determined the content validity of the scale by forward and backward-translating each item from English into Persian. The concurrent validity of the questionnaire was estimated as acceptable. To determine the predictive validity, the relationship between Form B and health status was used, an action that showed that health status correlated positively with Internal but negatively with Chance and did not correlate with Powerful others Health Locus of Control. The exploratory factor analysis indicated that the factor structure of the translated scale was quite similar to that of the original one. The internal consistency ranged from 0·69-0·72 and parallel forms reliability indices ranged from 0·70-0·72 for its subscales.

CONCLUSION

The results indicated that psychometric characteristics of the Iranian version of Form B were estimated acceptable among the youth.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE

The findings will assist professional health educators and nurses to develop educational interventions that should be designed to support and strengthen students' abilities so that they could recognise, understand and predict health behaviours.