Premium
Young women's representations of sexually transmitted diseases (RoSTD): A psychometric study
Author(s) -
Royer Heather R.,
Heidrich Susan M.,
Brown Roger L.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
research in nursing and health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.836
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1098-240X
pISSN - 0160-6891
DOI - 10.1002/nur.21452
Subject(s) - confirmatory factor analysis , internal consistency , psychosocial , clinical psychology , psychometrics , medicine , sexual behavior , psychology , test (biology) , scale (ratio) , psychiatry , structural equation modeling , paleontology , statistics , mathematics , biology , physics , quantum mechanics
Measurement of beliefs about sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) is important to understanding sexual health behaviors. The purpose of this study was to develop and test the psychometric properties of the Representations of STDs (RoSTD) Scale. The RoSTD was developed to measure young women's representations of STDs, and it is intended to be used to measure beliefs about any of the seven most common STDs. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated a four‐factor structure for the 40‐item RoSTD: Future Perspective, Cause, Psychosocial Consequence, and Identity. Internal consistency for the subscales (measured for each of seven different STDs) ranged from .67 to .93 and 2‐week test–retest correlations ranged from .69 to .90. The RoSTD shows evidence of reliability and validity in young women. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Res Nurs Health 35:15–29, 2012