Development of a public health assessment tool to prevent Lyme disease: tool construction and validation

This study involved the design and validation of a new Lyme disease risk assessment instrument. The study was funded in part by a research grant from the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) Foundation on Research and Education (FORE). The resulting instrument measured theoretical constructs such as attitudes, behaviors, beliefs, skills, and knowledge relative to Lyme disease. The survey assessment tool is described here, and the tool development process, the validation and reliability process, and results are presented. The assessment tool was created by using a standard instrument development process that first involved constructing possible items (questions) based on several health behavior theories and known health risk behaviors. These items were then further refined by using focus groups, a small pilot study, factor analysis, and a large-scale pilot study. Validity and reliability indices were established with a test-retest reliability coefficient of .66, and finally the tool was used among a population living in a Lyme-disease-endemic area. Cronbach's alpha coefficients of .737 for behavioral items, .573 for cognitive items, and .331 for environmental items were established.