Abstract
Abstract Objectives: to develop and analyze the psychometric properties of a questionnaire to assess community health workers’ knowledge on breastfeeding. Methods: this is a methodological study for the development of an instrument and analysis of validity and reliability. For the elaboration of items and identification of dimensions, a literature review was conducted. The items were submitted to the evaluation of a committee of judges, for apparent and content analysis. Construct validation was conducted through hypothesis test, with the participation of 282 community health workers and 19 pediatricians and obstetric nurses. For analysis and comparison of scores, the Mann-Whitney U test was used, assuming a significance level of 5%. Reliability was assessed using Cronbach's alpha coefficient and temporal consistency of the instrument was assessed using test-retest and Kappa analysis. Results: the final instrument presented a favorable opinion from the committee of judges. The hypothesis test showed that the questionnaire has discriminatory power to assess professionals with a higher level of knowledge (p<0.001). The Kappa test revealed that 63% of the items showed substantive to almost perfect agreement. The 32-item questionnaire showed a Cronbach's alpha of 0.794. Conclusion: the instrument developed was valid and reliable, allowing effective measurement of community health workers’ knowledge on breastfeeding.
Highlights
Breastfeeding is considered the most effective way to nourish the child, from birth to the sixth month of life
In Brazil, the Primary Health Care (PHC) is operationalized by the multidisciplinary teams that make up the Family Health Strategy (FHS)
In the construct validation stage, the instrument was applied to 282 Community Health Agents (CHA) registered in FHS teams and 19
Summary
Breastfeeding is considered the most effective way to nourish the child, from birth to the sixth month of life. Assess the CHAs' knowledge on the weaning process and on the need and general aspects of the introduction of new foods during the first months of the child's life. The professionals in this study were appointed as a “Committee of judges” They assessed the presence or absence of the scope and relevance criteria (content validation), objectivity, and clarity (apparent validation). In the analysis of each of the judges, the ratings were scored using the Content Validity Index (CVI), in which responses with “very relevant” and “relevant” assessments should correspond to more than 80% of the total respondents so that the item would remain in the questionnaire. At the suggestion of the committee of judges and considering the relevance, two more items that addressed important aspects about the CHA’s knowledge were added to the instrument
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