The construction and validation of a scale measuring Health Education of children/teenagers and parents

Health Education allows the development of behaviors capable of influencing the factors of a healthy life, namely the maintenance and improvement of the health status of the child/teenager/family. Therefore, the perception of the importance of this practice by those who experience it (nurses and parents) can contribute strongly to its efficacy. Thus, this study aimed to build and validate an instrument for evaluating Health Education, carried out by nurses focused on children, teenagers, and/or parents. This was a descriptive, cross-sectional study developed in two phases: elaboration of items and their associations with the scale's dimensions based upon a bibliographical review, exploratory interviews with nurses and parents members, analysis by experts (nurses), and subsequent validation using an exploratory factor analysis. The psychometric qualities of the scale were assessed by a sample of 603 individuals (nurses and parents), and studies of reliability, validity and internal consistency were also carried out. The results of the exploratory factor analysis identified three factors: "partnership of care with the child/teenagers and parents"; "Health literacy"; "Promotion of healthy environments and health behaviors" with 48 items. Analyses included high item-factor correlation (>= 0.70); Cronbach's alpha=0.987; Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin=0.987; statistical significance within Bartlett's sphericity test (p<0.001). The total explained variance was 65.7%. We can conclude that the Health Education assessment tool for the child/teenager(s)/family contexts, in addition to meeting the validity requirements, presents positive results for its use in the Health Education assessments carried out for the child/teenager(s)/parents.