Validation of a questionnaire to measure youth-friendliness of Swedish youth clinics.

Abstract

This study presents the validation process of a tool to assess the youth-friendliness of Swedish youth clinics, based on the Youth-Friendly Health Services - World Health Organization Plus (YFHS-WHO+) questionnaire but adapted to the specific context of differentiated services catering only for young people in this country. The validation process followed five steps: (1) translation, (2) revision by professionals, (3) pretests with young people, (4) back-translation and discussion with the developers of the original YFHS-WHO+ questionnaire and (5) internal consistency and test-retest reliability testing. The final Swedish version, titled Youth-Friendly Health Services-Sweden (YFHS-Swe), differs from the original in terms of adjustments in language and in changes to make it better correspond to the reality of the Swedish youth clinics, while maintaining the meaning and intention of the original questionnaire. The YFHS-Swe questionnaire generated reproducible responses (test-retest coefficient of 0.79 for the total score) and can be considered a measure of a cohesive construct (Cronbach alpha of 0.95 for the total score). The study suggests that the YFHS-Swe questionnaire is a reliable instrument that can be an asset for youth clinics to evaluate their work and make regional and national comparisons between clinics. The YFHS-Swe could also serve as a basis for validating instruments to assess youth-friendliness of differentiated services for young people in other countries.