Assessment of the questionnaire of environmental factors and adolescent smoking behavior: a psychometric study

ABSTRACT

Background

Smoking is one of the leading causes of mortality in the world. Evidence suggests that environmental factors (EF) play an important role in adolescent smoking behavior. Therefore, the present study aimed to perform a psychometric analysis of the questionnaire of EF on smoking behavior and evaluate the theoretical framework with a path analysis approach in adolescents in Isfahan, Iran.

Methods

This psychometric cross-sectional study recruited a sample of 340 adolescents selected by simple random stratified clustered sampling in Isfahan in 2019. The data collection tool was a researcher-made questionnaire of EF.

Results

The participants’ mean age was 16.67 (0.98) years. The content validity index and content validity ratio of the questionnaire of EF were 0.8 and 0.58, respectively, and its total corrected item-total correlations index was 0.377. The results of confirmatory factor analysis showed acceptable goodness of fit for the first-order measurement model of environmental variables, and the results of path analysis showed acceptable goodness of fit for the explanatory model of EF.

Conclusions

The present study provided a valid and reliable explanatory model of EF of smoking behavior and its related questionnaire, so it can be used in studies related to adolescent smoking behavior.

KEYWORDS:

• Smoking
• adolescent
• environmental factors
• path analysis
• mixed methods study

Disclosure statement

We sincerely thank all the education organization officials, parents, and students who helped us in this research. All authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This study was financially supported by Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.