Development and Validation of Dust Exposure Prevention Questionnaire for Heart Patients Based on the Health Belief Model

Abstract Background: Many heart patients suffer from respiratory failures. It is necessary to prevent exposure to dust by taking educational steps to change the behaviors of heart patients.The present study aimed at developing and validating a dust prevention questionnaire based on the health belief model . Methods: A mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods was used to design and develop the desired tool in 2018. The qualitative section of the research was performed to identify the preventive behaviors needed by cardiovascular patients when exposed to dust using the expert panel’s opinions and literature review. The quantitative section of the research was performed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the research tool. The research population included 417 people with heart diseases referred to a heart hospital in Bushehr, Iran. Results: The designed questionnaire included a total of 27 items divided into six domains, namely perceived susceptibility, perceived barriers, perceived severity, perceived benefits, guidance of action, and self-efficacy. The means of Content Validity Ratio (CVR) and Content Validity Index (CVI) were 0.93 and 0.9, respectively. In addition, all designed items had good correlations with the total scores of their related domains. However, the model fit indices were not suitable. Hence, to fully fit the model to the data, it was tried to improve the model by releasing some parameters based on the modification indices suggested by AMOS software. The modified model had an acceptable fit . The results of Cronbach’s alpha coefficient also showed the appropriate reliability of all six domains. Conclusions: The designed questionnaire had desirable psychometric properties and appropriate validity to determine the factors involved in preventing dust complications in heart patients. Designing this questionnaire could also be considered as an effective step to evaluate the effective factors in preventing dust complications in patients with heart diseases .