Development and psychometric evaluation of a new instrument to assess nutritional perceptions and behaviors of diabetic men.

BACKGROUND: It is obvious that unhealthy nutritional behaviors have caused the increasing incidence of diabetes. This study aimed to design the Measure of Nutritional Perceptions and Behaviors in diabetic men and to evaluate its psychometric properties.

METHODS: A questionnaire was developed within 7 factors. Three methods of face validity, content validity, and construct validity were employed to ensure the validity of the scale. 206 men with diabetes completed the questionnaires. Internal was used to evaluate the reliability of the scale.

RESULTS: The mean age of men was 58.26 (9.74) years. Results showed that each item in the final questionnaire was highly correlated with the total score of each dimension P<0.05. Moreover, factor analysis led to the extraction of 36 items with acceptable factor loadings in the range of 0.41 to 0.84, which could account for 51% of the total variance. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient equal to 0.83 was obtained for the whole scale.

CONCLUSION: The reliability and validity of diabetic men's beliefs about healthy nutritional behaviors were desired and the overall structure of the questions was confirmed. This questionnaire can be used to identify individuals at risk for unhealthy nutritional behaviors and also to conduct and evaluate the impact of educational interventions.