Preliminary validation of an instrument to assess social support and tuberculosis stigma in patients families

摘要

>Setting: Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brazil.>Objective: To develop and validate a preliminary instrument for assessing social support and tuberculosis (TB) stigma in families of TB patients.>Design: A literature review on social support and TB stigma was used to generate the theoretical domains for the instrument. A focus group was then conducted with TB patients and their families to revise the domains. Reviewers were invited to judge the appropriateness of the items in the instrument. A cross-sectional survey was carried out among 110 family members to assess the factorial structure using principal component analysis and confirmatory factor analysis to assess construct validity. Reliability was assessed in terms of internal consistency using Cronbach's alpha.>Results: After semantic validation and a pilot study, 23 items were selected for the scale. Examination of the factorial structure of the 16 items that were factorable using principal component analysis led to the extraction of two factors. The 16-item instrument was assessed for construct validity with confirmatory factor analysis, which confirmed a model with four items for each dimension.>Conclusion: The study analysed the psychometric properties of an instrument that is still in its preliminary stages. Other studies on a similar scale in the Brazilian setting are required.