Development and Validation of a Tool to Assess Perceptions and Practices Regarding Hypertension and Associated Comorbidities among Primary Health Care Providers of a Rural Community in India.

BACKGROUND

Primary health-care providers can play a crucial role in the prevention and early detection of non-communicable diseases. Knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) survey of primary health-care providers is needed to assess their gaps in knowledge, and identify barriers for effective implementation of the national program. However, such KAP instruments are lacking.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study is to develop, validate and assess the reliability of a questionnaire to determine the KAPs of primary health-care providers about hypertension and associated comorbidities.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This study was conducted in the following steps: item construction and psychometric testing, by validity and reliability analysis.

RESULTS

The final KAP questionnaire comprised 25 knowledge items, 12 attitude items, and 8 practice items. Exploratory factor analysis using principal axis factoring with varimax rotation revealed four dimensions in the attitude section explaining 35.93% and two dimensions in practice sections explaining 65.96% of the total variance. Cronbach's alpha coefficient for attitude and practice session measured 0.65 and 0.85, respectively. A Kuder Richardson value of 0.70 was obtained for the knowledge section. ICC coefficients were 0.56 ( < 0.00) for knowledge, 0.77 ( < 0.00) for attitude and 0.88 ( < 0.00) for practice sections indicating moderate-to-good correlations. Overall, the instrument developed had acceptable validity and reliability.

CONCLUSION

Overall, the instrument developed had acceptable validity and reliability to assess the perceptions and practices of primary healthcare providers about prevention and control of hypertension and associated comorbidities in the community.