Turkish validity and reliability study of "parental perceptions of children's exposure to tobacco smoke scale"

Aim: The aim of this study is to adapt the Parental Perception of Children's Tobacco Smoke Exposure Scale into Turkish, evaluate its validity and reliability, and determine parental perceptions of children's tobacco smoke exposure and associated sociodemographic factors in Samsun province. Materials and Methods: The aim of this study is to adapt the Parental Perception of Children's Tobacco Smoke Exposure Scale into Turkish, evaluate its validity and reliability, and determine parental perceptions of children's tobacco smoke exposure and associated sociodemographic factors in Samsun province. Results: Four items that did not meet the expected values in the analyzed were removed from the scale. Cronbach's α value for the remaining 19 items was 0.937; the test-retest correlation coefficient was 0.72 (p<0.001) and the intraclass reliability coefficient was 0.91 (95%CI: 0.84-0.95). Item-total score correlations were above 0.30 for all items. The content validity index was above 0.80. An exploratory factor analysis revealed a four-factor structure. The structure, explaining 74.3% of the total variance, was confirmed in the confirmatory factor analysis. Women, those with higher education levels, healthcare workers, non-smokers, and those who did not allow smoking in their cars had higher scale scores. A negative correlation was found between scale scores and participants' age, their children's average age, the age of the youngest child, and the number of cigarettes smoked daily, while a positive correlation was observed with education level. Conclusion: The Turkish version of the parental perception of children's tobacco smoke exposure scale is reliable and valid.