Turkish Validity and Reliability Study of the Traditional and Complementary Medicine Health Belief Questionnaire

Abstract

Objective: This study aims to translate the “Complementary and Alternative Medicine Health Belief Questionnaire” which was developed by Lie and Boker into Turkish, and to conduct a validity and reliability study.

Methods: This study was conducted with 155 students studying in the 5th and 6th terms of the faculties of medicine in Ankara. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed in the study. The validity of the scale was measured with by the “validity coefficient” and its reliability by the “Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient”. Comparisons were made with the Complementary, Alternative and Traditional Medicine Attitude Scale.

Results: A total of 155 students, 74 male (47.7%) and 81 female (52.3%), were included in the study. Among them, 108 (69.7%) were 5th term, and 47 (30.3%) were 6th term students. In our study, the total reliability alpha coefficient of the “Complementary and Alternative Medicine Health Belief Questionnaire- Turkish Form” was found to be 0.833. To measure the validity of the questionnaire, firstly, the correlation between each item of the “Complementary and Alternative Medicine Health Belief Questionnaire-Turkish Form” separately and the total score of the Traditional and Complementary Medicine Attitude Scale was calculated. Secondly, the correlation between the total score of the “Complementary and Alternative Medicine Health Belief Questionnaire- Turkish Form” scale and the total score of the Traditional and Complementary Medicine Attitude Scale was calculated. A significant correlation was found between the two scales at a significance level of 0.05.

Conclusion: According to the results of the study, “Complementary and Alternative Medicine Health Belief Questionnaire- Turkish Form” is an appropriate and sufficient scale to be used to measure the attitudes/beliefs of fifth and sixth-grade students in the medical schools about traditional and complementary medicine. For this reason, it can be used as a data collection tool in shaping medical education and health policies.