Cervical Cancer Screening: Design and Psychometric Properties Evaluation of Emotional Support Scale

A cervical screening test can reduce the incidence and mortality rates of cervical cancer. Among the various influencing factors, the role of emotional social support is more prominent than other aspects of social support. This research aims to designing and psychometric assessment of the scale for cancer screening emotional support in 2021 in Karaj.

In this methodological study for design, first, by reviewing the texts and conducting interviews with 20 women of reproductive age, a pool of 33 items was formed, which was later reduced to 9 items using the Delphi method and led to the design of the initial version of the scale, that reduced the number of items to 8 during the face and content validity processes of the scale. The construct validity (exploratory, confirmatory) of the scale was performed with the participation of 630 women with a mean age of 42.12±9.78 by convenience sampling method. To analyze the data, SPSS 24, AMOS24 were used.

The mean content validity index, intra-cluster correlation coefficient and Cronbach's alpha coefficient were 0.92, 0.93 and 0.79, respectively, which indicated the optimal level of the desired indices. The items of the designed scale, while analyzing the exploratory factor, were included in the two factors of positive effects and negative effects of emotional support in cervical cancer screening, which together explained 61.866% of the total variance. Confirmatory factor analysis indices confirmed the factors of the studied scale.

The designed scale had good psychometric adequacy. This simple, expressive and concise scale can be used for emotional support in cervical cancer screening in women of childbearing age.