Development of water footprint behavior scale,validity and reliability study;research assistant physician sample

Water footprint is a concept that has become increasingly important in recent years and is increasingly becoming a part of our lives. With this methodological study, it was aimed to develop a scale that evaluates the behaviors of individuals to reduce their water footprint. The study population consisted of 425 physicians from the population of 28.768 research assistant physicians. The data collection form were composed of 12 questions containing the sociodemographic information of the participants and 32-item candidate scale. Data analysis was conducted with SPSS program, and p<0,05 was considered statistically significant. In the first 35-item scale, the number of items was reduced to 32 by consulting experts on the content validity of the items.The scale was found to be applicable as the Content Validity Ratio of the items was ≥0.62 and the Content Validity Index was ≥0.67 (p<0,05). Five items with an item-total score correlation coefficient less than 0.20 were removed from the scale. The Kaiser Mayer Olkin value of the scale was calculated as 0.728 and was evaluated as "good". Barlett's test of sphericity was found to be significant (p<0,001). As a result of the explanatory factor analysis for construct validity, a one-dimensional 27-item scale was obtained. The eigenvalue of the scale was 4.05 and the explained variance value was 55.25% and it was "good". For reliability, the retest was first performed on 108 people, and a highly significant positive correlation was found between the responses of the participants to the first test and the retest outcomes (p<0,001; r=0.746). The Cronbach's Alpha value of the final version of the scale was calculated as 0.744. The mean score of the participants from the scale was 96.56±10.16. The lowest score that can be obtained from the scale is 27, and the highest score is 135. As the scores obtained from the scale get closer to 27, it shows negative behaviors, and as it gets closer to 135, it shows positive behaviors for Water Footprint Behavior Scale. As a result of the study, the "Water Footprint Behavior Scale" was developed in a five-point Likert type, one-dimensional, and 27-item. The results show that the scale can be applied in society and can be used safely in the formation of scientific judgments by conducting validity and reliability studies.