Development and psychometric properties of the female adolescents’ sexual reproductive self-care scale

INTRODUCTION: The aim of this study was to design and evaluate the psychometric properties of an instrument for understanding female adolescents' reproductive and sexual self-care behaviors. METHODS: A methodological study was conducted. In the qualitative phase, individual in-depth interviews were performed to develop the initial questionnaire. In the quantitative part, the psychometric properties of the questionnaire were evaluated. FINDINGS: The initial questionnaire with 128 items was reviewed by the research team and taking into account the cut-off point 1.5 for the item impact and 0.62 for the content validity ratio (CVR), the number of questions fell to 82 items. S-CVR and S-content validity index (CVI) rations were 0.83 and 0.91, respectively. Exploratory factor analysis led to 74 items in seven dimensions. The alpha Cronbach's coefficient for the whole questionnaire was 0.895 and the intra-cluster correlation coefficient was 0.91. CONCLUSION: The questionnaire developed in this study is reliable and valid for assessing female adolescents' sexual and reproductive self-care.