Evaluation of Validity and Reliability of " Parents Comfort to Discuss about Sex Topics" and " Parents Intention to Discuss about Sex Topics" Questionnaires

Despite the widely recognized importance of sexual health, sex education remains a sensitive issue for parents. Parent's feeling comfortable to talk about sex topics and their effective communication with children sexual health; have been identified as important protective factors against high-risk sexual behaviors. This study was conducted to investigate the validity and reliability of “parents comfort to discuss about sex topics” and “parents intention to discuss about sex topics” questionnaires.
The English version of questionnaires was translated into Persian and their validity was confirmed by an expert panel. One hundred sixty parents (eighty-four mothers and seventy-six fathers) who lived in Tehran and had at least one thirteen to sixteen year-old child participated in the study and filled out the adapted version of questionnaires. Test- retest was performed and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient, ICC and Kappa were applied to assess reliability and internal consistency of instruments.
The Cronbach’s alpha was 0.95. The Intra-Class Correlation (ICC) for “parents comfort to discuss about sex topics” questionnaire was above 0.9 and Kappa for “parents intention to discuss about sex topics” questionnaire was in range of 0.64-1.
This study indicates that Persian version of “parents comfort to discuss about sex topics” and “parents intention to discuss about sex topics” questionnaires are valid and reliable and they can be used in surveys on the context of sexual education.