Objective: The Osteoporosis Health Belief Scale (OHBS) is a 42-item scale designed to measure general health motivation, perceived susceptibility to and seriousness of osteoporosis, and beliefs about calcium intake and exercise in preventing and treating osteoporosis. The purpose of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the OHBS by telephone administration among older women.
Study design and setting: A convenience sample of 425 women aged 61-93 years participating in a longitudinal arthritis study was recruited by telephone. Item clarity was evaluated and 22 additional items (6 reworded, 16 from other questionnaires) were considered to supplement or replace existing scale items. Multitrait scaling techniques and exploratory factor analysis were used to test scale structure. Construct validity was tested based on theoretical hypothesis between OHBS subscale scores and participant characteristics.
Results: A few modifications to the OHBS scale were suggested, reducing the scale by five items (two redundant, three did not load), rewording one item and moving on item to a different subscale. The modified 37-item OHBS had a seven-factor uncorrelated solution explaining 48% of the model variance with internal consistency ranging from 0.73 to 0.88.
Conclusion: Relatively minor changes to the OHBS results in reduced redundancy and improved internal structure of the scale for telephone administration among women over 60 years of age. Further examination is recommended to confirm these findings.