Examining the Validity and Reliability of the Students’ Mental and Social Health Questionnaire in Determining Suicidal Thoughts and Suicide Attempts in the Students of an Iranian University of Technology in 2021: A Descriptive Study

The development of the mental health scale among students requires the use of efficient screening tools that are compatible with the society's culture. Since every evaluation tool such as a questionnaire must have adequate validity and reliability, the present study was conducted with the aim of determining the validity and reliability of the questionnaire used to determine suicidal thoughts and actions among the students of an Iranian university of technology in 2021.

This descriptive study was conducted in 2021 on 8440 students of an Iranian university of technology. The data collection tool was a researcher-made questionnaire, whose content validity was checked using the content validity ratio (CVR) and the content validity index (CVI). The internal reliability of the questionnaire was checked by Cronbach's alpha and Kuder-Richardson method.

Since 10 experts checked the questions, the acceptable CVR for this questionnaire was 0.62, and 39 questions were within the acceptable range. In examining the CVI of the questions, 40 questions had an acceptable CVI (higher than 0.79). Cronbach's alpha and kuder-Richardson's coefficients in measuring the internal reliability of this questionnaire were calculated as 0.93 and 0.87, respectively, indicating that this questionnaire has good reliability.

Based on the results of the current study, the students’ mental and social health questionnaire has relatively appropriate validity and reliability, but it seems necessary to change and replace some questions that did not have favorable content validity ratio and content validity index.