Measuring perceived barriers to condom use: psychometric evaluation of the Condom Barriers Scale

A programmatic series of three studies developed and evaluated the Condom Barriers Scale (CBS), an instrument measuring women s perceived barriers to condom use for prevention of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. Following item generation and selection, Study 1 evaluated the CBS in a sample of minority women (N = 178), reduced the number of items, assessed the factor structure, evaluated the internal consistency, and explored the convergent validity of the CBS. In Study 2, the CBS was administered to a cross-validation sample (N = 278). Confirmatory factor analysis and internal consistency were compared against the original sample and construct, criterion, and discriminant validity were assessed. In Study 3 (N = 30), temporal stability of the CBS was evaluated. The resulting instrument appears to have sound psychometric properties and can be used to measure a key construct in the leading theoretical models of health behavior for which a measure with known psychometric properties previously has not been available.