VALIDATION OF AN INSTRUMENT TO ASSESS HEALTH PROMOTING ACTIVITIES PERFORMED BY SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL ADOLESCENTS.
Contributors: University of Kansas.
Published: 1988
Number of pages: 195
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: The purpose of this study was to validate an instrument to assess the health promoting activities performed by 509 senior high school adolescents. This investigator sought to establish the validity of the main research instrument, the Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile, with an adolescent population (ages from 15-19 years). This investigator also sought to establish reliability of selected scaled content items in the Health Diary with a sample of thirty 18-year-old adolescents over a seven day period of time.

Using the principal factor analysis with oblique (PROMAX) rotation confirmation of the 6 factors (self-actualization, health responsibility, interpersonal support, exercise, nutrition, and stress management) in the Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile were obtained with an adolescent population. Internal consistency for the instrument was high; the Cronbach's alpha coefficients calculated for the first 4 factors ranged from.815-.899 and for the total instrument was.926.

Statistically significant positive correlations were found between the 6 confirmed factors in the Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile and selected health screening items (e.g., arthritis, broken bone(s), and you (adolescent) hospitalized), selected demographic items (e.g., age, grade, gender, religion, father's occupation, mother's occupation, father's education level, and mother's education level), and data from the General Activities Questionnaire (e.g., 55 correlations). Clinical significance, however, can not be accepted because the correlations accounted for very small amounts of variance (and therefore very small amounts of clinical reality) and because the experiment wide error rate was not controlled in the study.

The correlation coefficients for each of the 12 items on day one in the Health Diary with its respective item on each of the other six days resulted in statistically significant positive correlations (ranging from.385-.776) for the following five items: item 2 (performance of normal activities), item 4 (rating of health), item 5 (answered the open-ended question), item 10-2 (performance of basic exercises), and item 10-4 (performance of strenuous exercises). Only items 2 and 4 were scaled content items; the rest were dichotomous items. Preliminary reliability, then, was established for 2 types of items in the Health Diary.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 50-06, Section: B, page: 2337.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS, 1988.

School code: 0099.