Development and validation of the health belief model scale for early childhood caries prevention behaviors of parents.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Health Belief Model (HBM) is a theoretical model to assess perceptions about health behaviors. There is no comprehensive HBM scale to evaluate the early childhood caries (ECC) preventing behavior of parents. This study aimed to develop and validate a HBM scale to measure health beliefs concerning preventive behaviors for ECC. Specifically, the scale targeted parents with young children.

Methods

The initial item pool was set up by adapting existing HBM scales to assess parents' health beliefs regarding their children's ECC under six HBM domains and then underwent face and content validation. In the construct validation, parents were recruited and invited to complete the drafted HBM questionnaire, and the collected data were randomly divided into two equal halves. E

SUBMITTER: Wang K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12224865 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature