Psychometric Validation of a Nutrition Knowledge Questionnaire among Parents of 3-6-Year-Old Asian Indian Children in East Barddhaman District, West Bengal, India.

BACKGROUND

In India, virtually, no study was aimed to develop a psychometrically valid and reliable questionnaire to assess the nutrition knowledge and practice among parents of children aged between 3 and 6 years.

OBJECTIVE

The present study describes an evaluation of validity and reliability measures in a questionnaire designed for the assessment of nutrition knowledge among parents of children participating in a study finding relationship between physical growth and development and nonverbal intelligence quotient development being undertaken in a semi-urban area.

DESIGN

This was a cross-sectional school-based reliability and validity study.

SETTING

This study was conducted in seven primary schools within the limits of Purba (East) Barddhaman district legislation, West Bengal, India.

PARTICIPANTS

One hundred and thirty-four parents of children aged 3-6 years were included in the study.

RESULTS

The final questionnaire consisted of 32 questions that were selected on the basis of content validity. Questions included closed-ended and multiple-choice items which could be answered correctly by 5%-95% of the target population with a difficulty index of 0.33-0.87, discrimination index of 0.12-0.44, and validity index of 0.10-0.86. Internal reliability of each item as measured by Cronbach's α of 0.87 was also significant.

CONCLUSIONS

The test comprises basic psychometric criteria of a valid and reliable 32-item knowledge questionnaire which further forms an instrument for measuring current scenario and interpreting changes associated with intervention work aiming improvement of dietary and nutrition knowledge-practice in the middle-to-low socioeconomic community.