Development and validation of health belief model questionnaire on attitude toward the prevention of cancers in Bengali language: A cross-sectional study in urban field practice area of a tertiary care hospital, Kolkata

Abstract Background: Promoting preventive measures of cancer among people should be based on a psychosocial model and be tailored to attitude which is a difficult variable to measure. Objectives: The objective of this study was to develop and validate a questionnaire to evaluate the attitude of urban adults toward the prevention of cancer. Methods: This observational study with cross-sectional design was done in the field practice area of a tertiary care hospital, Kolkata. Four hundred and fifteen respondents were interviewed. The content validity, construct validity, and reliability were performed, followed by exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis to identify the factors. Results: Items were generated by literature review. Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) value suggests that the model was reasonably fit (KMO > 0.8). The final attitude questionnaire contained 19 items. The factorial analysis revealed four domains such as perceived severity, perceived susceptibility, perceived barrier, and perceived benefit that explain the 58% estimated variance. Overall reliability was measured by Cronbach’s alpha (0.716) and McDonald’s omega (0.709). Conclusion: The results show that the questionnaire is relatively valid and reliable to assess the attitude of urban adults toward cancer prevention. Understanding the attitude of people with respect to cancer prevention will help develop more effective cancer-preventive programs.