[Development of an osteoporosis awareness scale for women]

This study was conducted to develop an instrument measuring awareness of osteoporosis.

The process included construction of a conceptual framework, generation of 86 preliminary items, verification of content validity, selection of secondary items, verification of construct validity and extraction of final items. The 86 items were reviewed for content validity by two groups of experts and were tested to evaluate inter item correlation coefficient by two groups of adult women. From June to August 2007, data were collected from 383 adult women who lived in Seoul and provinces in Korea. Data were analyzed by performing item analysis, Varimax factor analysis and Cronbach's alpha.

There were 31 items in the final instrument categorized into 5 factors. The factors were labeled as "preventive behaviors (10 items)", "risk factors (5 items)", "characteristics of osteoporosis (6 items)", "improving bone health (5 items)", and "bone physiology (5 items)". Cumulative percent of variance was 60.92% and eigen values ranged from 1.20 to 12.44. Cronbach's alpha was .948 and ranged from .804 to .917.

Validity and reliability of the scale are confirmed in this study showing its utility for measuring awareness of osteoporosis for women. Utilization of the scale will also contribute to designing an appropriate prevention program for osteoporosis.