Assessing Prevention Protocols by a Brief Questionnaire in the Infectious Respiratory Diseases Pandemics: An Application in Pedestrian Population in COVID-19 Pandemic

To perform effective prevention programs, we need to know how well people follow prevention protocols, like mask use and social distancing, measuring using standard tools. This study aims to develop and validate a brief questionnaire to assess the compliance with prevention protocols against infectious respiratory diseases pandemics including COVID-19 in pedestrians. This cross-sectional study was conducted using convenience sampling method in May and June 2021. Construct validity of the questionnaire was assessed using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA). Content validity was evaluated by quantitative method, thus, Content Validity Ratio (CVR) and Content Validity Index (CVI) were calculated. For reliability of the questionnaire, the internal consistency using Cronbach’s alpha, and test-retest reliability using Spearman-Brown correlation coefficient were assessed. A total of 324 persons from three provinces of Iran participated in this study. The mean age (SD) of participants was 41.5 (16.7). The CVR values resulted in the elimination of two questions. The Scale level CVI/Average (S-CVI/Ave) was equal to 0.992; and Scale level CVI/Universal Agreement (S-CVI/UA) was 0.889. One factor with five items emerged from principal component factor analysis accounting for 51.99% of the variance. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient equal to 0.76 indicated an acceptable internal consistency and the Spearman-Brown correlation coefficient of 0.939 depicted stability of the questionnaire. This questionnaire is a brief tool with acceptable validity and reliability to evaluate the compliance with preventive protocols during infectious respiratory diseases outbreaks in order for policy-makers to make effective interventions to slow down the spread of disease.