[Instrument for evaluating the actions of leprosy control in Primary Care]

The study aimed to construct and validate an instrument to assess the leprosy actions control in primary care from the perspective of community health agents (CHA). This is a methodological study to validate instruments, based on the Classical Test Theory. The instrument was administered to 380 CHA of three municipalities in the state of Minas Gerais, in the period from July to December 2012. In the stage of face and content validity 17 items of the instrument were reduced. The factor analysis extracted eight factors that accounted for a percentage of 35.7% of the total variance. The principal components analysis allowed the elimination of eight items that showed no adaptation to the factors defined. The overall Cronbach alpha for the 57 items was 0.858. We conclude that the instrument is valid to evaluate the performance of primary care in leprosy control in the experience of ACS.