Attitudes and Beliefs of Nursing Students Towards the Childhood Overweight Scale

Abstract

The Attitudes and Beliefs of Nursing Students Towards the Childhood Overweight Scale, developed by Semerci, Çelik, and Kudubeş in 2023, is an inventory/questionnaire designed to measure the attitudes and beliefs of Turkish nursing students concerning childhood obesity. This 19-item scale is an adaptation of the children’s version originally developed by Tsai et al. (2018), which in turn was adapted from Allison’s (1995) Attitudes Towards Obese Persons Scale (ATOP) and Beliefs About Obese Persons Scale (BAOP). The Turkish adaptation was carried out with explicit written permission from Dr. Lauretta Luck. The scale has undergone rigorous psychometric evaluation, including expert item analysis to ensure content validity. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were performed on data from a sample of nursing students, supporting a two-factor model for the ATOP scale and a one-factor model for the BAOP scale. The psychometric properties, including internal consistency and construct validity, have been reported, demonstrating the scale’s robustness in assessing this critical construct within the nursing student population.

Keywords

Attitudes toward Childhood Obesity; Nursing Students; Self-Concept; Social Relations; Student Beliefs

Authors

Semerci, Remziye; Çelik, Özge Mengi; Kudubeş, Asli Akdeni̇z

Purpose

The primary purpose of this scale is to quantify and understand Turkish nursing students’ attitudes and beliefs regarding childhood obesity. This measurement is crucial for identifying potential biases or misconceptions that may influence their future clinical practice and patient education in addressing childhood obesity.

Validity

Content Validity: The content validity of the scale was robustly supported by expert item analysis. Specifically, the item–content validity index (I-CVI) ranged from 0.91 to 0.99, indicating a high level of agreement among experts regarding the relevance of each item. The overall scale-level content validity index (S-CVI) was 0.97, further confirming the strong content validity of the instrument.

Construct Validity: Evidence for construct validity was provided by the variance explained by the factor analyses. For both the ATOP and BAOP children’s versions, the explained variance exceeded 40%, which is considered a strong indicator of construct validity, suggesting that the scale effectively measures the theoretical constructs it intends to assess.

Reliability

Internal Consistency: The internal consistency of the Attitudes and Beliefs of Nursing Students Towards the Childhood Overweight Scale was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha values. For both the ATOP and BAOP children’s versions, the alpha values were reported to be greater than 0.70, indicating acceptable to good internal consistency and suggesting that the items within each subscale are highly correlated and reliably measure the same underlying construct.

Factor Analysis

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA):
For the Attitudes Towards Obese Persons (ATOP) children’s version, EFA revealed a two-factorial structure. Both factors had eigenvalues exceeding 1, collectively accounting for 49.3% of the total variance in the scale. This suggests that attitudes towards obese persons, as measured by this scale, are comprised of two distinct underlying dimensions.

For the Beliefs About Obese Persons (BAOP) children’s version, EFA indicated a single factorial structure. This single factor accounted for 55.92% of the total variance, suggesting that beliefs about obese persons, as measured by this scale, are largely unidimensional.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA):
For the ATOP children’s version, the two-factor model demonstrated acceptable goodness-of-fit indices, supporting the two-dimensional structure identified in the EFA. The fit indices were:

• χ²/df = 2.151

• RMSEA = 0.073

• GFI = 0.932

• CFI = 0.924

For the BAOP children’s version, the one-factor model also showed acceptable goodness-of-fit indices, confirming its unidimensional structure. The fit indices were:

• χ²/df = 2.190

• RMSEA = 0.074

• GFI = 0.969

• CFI = 0.976

These results from both EFA and CFA provide strong evidence for the proposed factor structures of the ATOP and BAOP scales within the Turkish nursing student population.

Instrument: Attitudes and Beliefs of Nursing Students Towards the Childhood Overweight Scale

Test Type: Original Instrument Type: Inventory/Questionnaire

Format:
The Attitudes Towards Obese Persons (ATOP) component of the scale consists of items rated on a five-point Likert type scale. Response options are: 1 = Strongly disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Undecided, 4 = Agree, and 5 = Strongly agree. The Beliefs About Obese Persons (BAOP) component is also rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale, although the specific anchors for the BAOP are not detailed. The scale is a 19-item measure in total. No data is Available regarding the availability of the test items themselves.

Language Available: Turkish

Population Group: Human (Male and Female)

Age Group: Adulthood (18 years & older)

Population Details: The study participants were 3rd and 4th-grade nursing students located in Turkey.

Test Methodology: The psychometric evaluation of the scale involved several key methodologies:

• Test Validity: Specifically, Construct Validity and Content Validity were assessed.

• Test Reliability: Internal Consistency was evaluated.

• Factor Analysis: Both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were employed to determine the underlying factor structures of the scale.

Authors

Authors:

• Remziye Semerci

• Özge Mengi Çelik

• Asli Akdeni̇z Kudubeş

Author ORCID Identifier: No data is Available

Affiliation Email Addresses:

• Remziye Semerci: [email protected]

• Özge Mengi Çelik: No data is Available

• Asli Akdeni̇z Kudubeş: No data is Available

Correspondence Address:
Remziye Semerci: [email protected]

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Permissions: To obtain permissions for the use of this scale, individuals are advised to contact the Corresponding Author directly.

Commercial: No data is Available

Fee: No data is Available

Test Year: 2023

References

Semerci, R., Çelik, Ö. M., & Kudubeş, A. A. (2023). Investigation of psychometric properties of Turkish version of nursing students’ attitudes and beliefs towards Childhood Obesity Scale. Archives of Psychiatric Nursing, 43, 65–70. doi:10.1016/j.apnu.2022.12.029

Items of the Attitudes and Beliefs of Nursing Students Towards the Childhood Overweight Scale

The Attitudes and Beliefs of Nursing Students Towards the Childhood Overweight Scale is a 19-item measure. This measure is composed of two main scales (subscales):

• Attitudes Towards Obese Persons (ATOP): This subscale is further divided into two components:

  • Self-Concept

  • Social Relations

• Beliefs About Obese Persons (BAOP)

No data is Available regarding the specific wording or content of the individual items within each subscale.