Development and validation of a scale for assessing community adults’ knowledge, attitude and practice toward adult snoring

TL;DR

This study created a reliable scale to assess community adults' knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding adult snoring.

Contribution

The paper introduces a validated 32-item scale with strong psychometric properties for evaluating adult snoring awareness.

Findings

The scale includes three dimensions: knowledge, attitude, and practice, with strong internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = 0.962).

Factor analysis confirmed five factors: basic cognition, causes and risk factors, snoring harm, attitude, and practices.

Test-retest reliability (ICC = 0.88) supports the scale's stability for use in community health assessments.

Abstract

This study aimed to develop and validate a scale for assessing community adults’ knowledge-attitude-practice toward Adult Snoring.

A total of 1,198 Chinese community adults were included in the development of this scale. An initial item pool was first constructed through literature review and qualitative interviews; after item optimization through Delphi expert consultation and pre-survey, the scale structure was determined through item screening, exploratory factor analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis, with reliability and validity tests also completed.

The scale comprised 32 items, with 18, 7, and 7 items, respectively, for knowledge dimension, attitude dimension, and practice dimension. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported three dimensions and five factors (basic cognition, causes and risk factors, snoring harm, attitude, and practices). Internal consistency for the total scale was high (Cronbach’s α = 0.962). The construct reliability of the five factors was 0.911, 0.912, 0.908, 0.920, and 0.910, respectively. The intraclass correlation coefficient of test–retest reliability was 0.88, providing support for the stability of the scale.

The scale demonstrates excellent psychometric properties, making it a reliable and valid tool for assessing community adults’ knowledge, attitude, and practice toward Adult Snoring. Identifying gaps in knowledge, attitudes, and practices about adult snoring among community adults supports the development of effective prevention-oriented health promotion strategies.

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