The Development and Evaluation of a Culturewise Instrument for Menstrual Hygiene

Menstrual hygiene is a complex phenomenon which is affected by various factors especially cultural factors, and poor menstrual hygiene can be a major cause for infertility and other problems. This study aimed at developing and psychometrically evaluating a cultural instrument for comprehensive measurement of menstrual hygiene.

This study was performed in two phases based on the PEN3 cultural model. The first phase was a qualitative study and literature review for the initial development of the instrument. The second phase was to determine the validity and reliability of the instrument. In order to determine the validity, we used the expert panel, impact score, Content Validity Ratio (CVR), and Content Validity Index (CVI); to determine the reliability, we used the test-retest method and Cronbach's alpha coefficient.

The instrument (questionnaire) has two parts; the first part consisted of 10 demographic questions and the second part was constructed based on PEN3 cultural model structures. After measuring the validity, Score Impact results suggested that all Items had a score of 1.5 or above. In the content validity index, we omitted 2 Items with CVI lower than 0.79 and 11 Items with CVR lower than 0.49. As for the reliability of the questionnaire (Cronbach's alpha), the items with the reliability coefficient higher than 0.7 were confirmed. So the reliability of the Acknowledge section was 0.87, Attitude 0.92, Practice 0.90, and the score for Enablers was 0.87.

This study presents a reliable and valid cultural instrument for comprehensive measurement of menstrual hygiene. Thus, it can be used to assess needs or investigate the effects of executive and educational interventions.
Key Words: Cultural instrument, Instrument development, Menstrual hygiene, Psychometrics.