Development of a Questionnaire to Assess the Mothers Knowledge and Attitude towards Hearing Loss in Children

Abstract

Objective: The support from mothers towards children with hearing loss is important for an early identification, diagnosis and intervention. Attempts at exploring the existing knowledge and attitude among mothers are crucial, which may lead to a greater benefit for the children and overall satisfaction for the child and the family. Thus, the present study was attempted to explore the knowledge and attitude of mothers towards children with hearing loss through the use of a valid and reliable questionnaire developed for this purpose in Malay-language. Methods: Questionnaire was developed based on past literature on knowledge, attitude and focus group discussions (FGD) which involved a representative from primary health care providers, ear, nose and throat (ENT) surgeon and audiologists. Translations follow a forward-backward procedure, independently carried out by two native-speakers of the target language. Translated questionnaires have undergone a pilot testing which involved 30 Malaysian mothers who visited the health clinics. The internal consistency of the two main domains (knowledge and attitude) was computed by the Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient to assess the reliability of the newly developed questionnaire. Results: The range of Cronbach’s Alpha showed a considerable consistency for both the knowledge and attitude with Cronbach’s Alpha of 0.77 and 0.78, respectively. Conclusion: The questionnaire regarding the knowledge and attitude of mothers towards children with hearing loss is a reliable and valid instrument. This research introduced the Malay-language version of the knowledge and attitude questionnaire as the first formal validated questionnaire and confirmed a high reliability and validity for the evaluation of mother’s knowledge and attitude towards children with hearing loss.