The development and initial validation of the self-care belief and behavior questionnaire

The construct of self-care offers a promising area of study as a possible intervention point to improve quality of life. However, current operationalizations of self-care have been limited by emphasizing self-care behavior without considering self-care beliefs. This study created and tested the psychometric properties of a novel measure, the Self-care Belief and Behavior Questionnaire. The measure was informed by Butler et al. (2019) proposed self-care definition that includes six life domains. Exploratory factor results showed that the measure had 3 factors (e.g. self-care behavior, worthiness related to self-care, and negative perceptions of self-care). The confirmatory model showed an acceptable fit (χ2 = 50.5, df = 32, p = .02; χ2/df = 1.58; CFI = .956; TLI = .939; SRMR = .061; RMSEA = .061; 90% RMSEA CI [.025, .092]) with indices within the recommended cutoffs (CFI & TLI > .90; SRMR < .08; RMSEA .05–.08). Self-care behavior scores were positively related to self-compassion (r = .537, p < .001) and self-esteem (r = .51, p < .001), scores were not correlated with the social desirability scale (r = -.025, p < .05) and were positively correlated with psychological wellbeing (r = .52, p < .001) indicating that this factor met convergent, divergent, and concurrent validity standards. Self-care is a multi-faceted concept that involves beliefs, thoughts about the self and actual behaviors. Future research should test this measure in other populations such as helping professionals as self-care is often a recommended coping tool in the face of emotional challenging work.