Construction and validation of a questionnaire on attitudes towards hand hygiene

Abstract

Background: Hand hygiene is the most effective measure to prevent health care-associated infections. Attitudes towards this simple practice influence the level of adherence. Aim: To develop and validate an instrument for the evaluation of attitudes towards hand hygiene in nursing students. Method: An observational and cross-sectional study was carried out.  Once the instrument was constructed, content validity was carried out through expert judgment. For construct validity, exploratory factor analysis was performed. Subsequently, the analysis of construct validity and reliability was calculated, which included the internal consistency and stability of the questionnaire. Results: 313 Nursing undergraduate students from 8 universities in Argentina participated. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO=0,720) was calculated, and a significant Bartlett sphericity test was obtained (x2 =831,2; =0,000). The exploratory factor analysis determined the existence of a single factor. The model explained 54% of the variance. The improved implementation of the Bayesian EAP estimation integrated in the FACTOR program was used, which was 0,85; and test-retest was also performed using correlation analysis that yielded r = 0,64 (p ≤ 0,001). Conclusions: The Questionnaire on attitudes towards hand hygiene (CAHM) has adequate validity and reliability, so it can be used to investigate this predisposing factor of adherence to hand hygiene.