Psychometric properties of the post pandemic health promotion behavior scale Turkish version for adults: Validity and reliability study

This study, which aims to determine the Turkish validity and reliability of the "Post-Pandemic Health Promotion Behaviors Scale for Adults," has a methodological research design. The sample of the study was defined as the Turkish population, and it was conducted with 600 participants aged 18 and over, who were reached through convenience sampling across Turkey. During the data collection, the following instruments were used; "Descriptive Information Form", Turkish version of the original scale as "Post-Pandemic Health Promotion Behavior (PP-HPB) Scale for Adults", additionally, for criterion-related validity analyses "Healthism Attitude Scale", "Health Literacy Scale–Short Form" and "SF-12 Health Survey". For the data analysis, descriptive statistics, item analyses, confirmatory factor analysis, and measurement invariance tests based on gender and time were utilized. When examining the corrected item-total correlations obtained from the data, the values ranged between 0.33 and 0.59. According to the confirmatory factor analysis, the goodness-of-fit index values were found to be at excellent and acceptable levels. Moreover, the adapted scale possesses adequate psychometric properties in terms of convergent validity. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the total scale was calculated as 0.90 and the McDonald's omega coefficient was 0.92. Based on changes in practical fit indices that demonstrate the scale items measure the same underlying structure across both genders; metric, scalar, and strict invariance were strongly established between genders. In the test-retest analysis, the correlation values for the factors ranged from 0.703 to 0.865, with an overall value of 0.906. As a result, it was concluded that the Turkish version of the Post-Pandemic Health Promotion Behaviors Scale for Adults is a valid and reliable tool for measuring health promotion behaviors in the post-pandemic period within the Turkish population.