The Cultural Health Attributions Questionnaire (CHAQ): reliability, validity, and refinement

Area of Science:

• Psychometrics
• Health Psychology
• Cultural Competence

Background:

• The Cultural Health Attributions Questionnaire (CHAQ) was developed to assess health beliefs among Latino/Hispanic individuals.
• Previous psychometric evaluations were limited to the Spanish version of the CHAQ.
• The original 24-item CHAQ includes Equity Attributions (EA) and Behavioral-Environmental Attributions (BEA) subscales.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the reliability and validity of the CHAQ in both Spanish and English versions.
• To develop and propose a refined, shorter version of the CHAQ (CHAQ-R).
• To assess the psychometric properties of the CHAQ-R in a diverse Latino/Hispanic sample.

Main Methods:

• Administered the CHAQ in Spanish and English to 436 Latino/Hispanic participants.
• Utilized multigroup confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and exploratory factor analyses (EFA).
• Assessed convergent and criterion validity using measures of acculturation and health locus of control.

Main Results:

• The original two-factor structure of the CHAQ did not fit the data in either language.
• Exploratory factor analyses identified different best-fitting models for each language.
• A 10-item revised version (CHAQ-R) with a common two-factor structure (EA/BEA) demonstrated good reliability and validity.

Conclusions:

• The CHAQ-R is a reliable and valid instrument for measuring cultural health attributions in Latino/Hispanic populations.
• Scores on the CHAQ-R demonstrated strong convergent validity with acculturation and health locus of control.
• Further psychometric evaluation of the CHAQ-R is recommended.