BACKGROUND

A novel approach suggested that cognitive and dispositional features may explain in depth the health behaviors adoption and the adherence to prevention programs. The Health Orientation Scale (HOS) has been extensively used to map the adoption of health and unhealthy behaviors according to cognitive and dispositional features. Coherently, the main aim of the current research was to assess the factor structure of the Italian version of the HOS using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and testing the construct validity of the scale by assessing differences in health orientations between tobacco cigarette smokers and nonsmokers.

METHOD

The research protocol was organized in two studies. Study 1 evaluated the dimensionality of the HOS in a sample of Northern Italian healthy people. Three hundred and twenty-one participants were enrolled; they were 229 women (71.3%) and 92 men (28.7%). In Study 2, the factor structure and construct validity of the HOS Italian version was assessed trough confirmatory factor analysis using a tobacco cigarette smokers and nonsmokers population. Two hundred and nineteen participants were enrolled; they were 164 women (75.2%) and 55 men (24.8%).

RESULTS

In Study 1, a seven factors solution was obtained explaining 60% of cumulative variance instead of 10 factors solution of the original version of the HOS. In Study 2, the factor structure of the Italian version of the HOS was confirmed and applied to the smokers and nonsmokers; nonsmokers reported higher values than smokers in Factor 1 (MHPP) [t (208) = - 2.739 p < .007] (CI 95-4.96% to -.809), Factor 2 (HES) [t (209) = - 3.387 p < .001] (CI 95-3.93% to -. 1.03), Factor 3 (HIC) [t(213) = - 2.468 p < .014] (CI 95-2.56% to -.28) and Factor 7 (HEX) [t(217) = - 3.451 p < .001] (CI 95%- 1.45 to .39).

CONCLUSIONS

Results of the Italian adaptation of HOS lead to a partial redistribution of items and confirmed 7 subscales to distinguish psycho-cognitive dispositional dimensions involved in health orientation styles.