Abstinence-Related Motivational Engagement Scale: Validity and Reliability in Turkish People

This research aimed to conduct a validity and reliability study of the Turkish version of the abstinence-related motivational engagement (ARME) scale.

This study included 122 people and was administered in a smoking cessation clinic. The sociodemographic-smoking status characteristics questionnaire and the ARME scale were used for data collection. A psycholinguistic language adaptation was performed. In the validity, analyses, content, construct, and criterion-related validities were used. For content validity, expert evaluation was performed. For construct validity, principal component analyses (exploratory factor analyses) were performed. Orthogonal (Varimax) rotation was used to explore multiple factors. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin test was used to assess the adequacy of the sample size. For criterion-related validity, we compared the ARME scale points of people who were abstinent and had relapse for smoking at the end of the sixth month. In the reliability analysis, standard deviation (SD) and item analysis, internal consistency, and test-retest methods were used.

The four factors explain 58% of the total variance. Items have factor loading between 0.409 and 0.805. When the factor structure of the scale was assessed, the items in each factor group have a factor load of at least "0.40." Due to one-dimensional use of the original scale, it has been decided to maintain this scale in its original form. The ARME scale points of people who quit smoking were statistically higher than the points of people who had relapse at the end of the sixth month. Cronbach's alpha coefficients were between 0.846 and 0.763. Significant and positive correlation was found between the test-retest scale scores.

The Turkish adaptation of the ARME scale, which was developed for adults who quitted smoking, is an adequately valid and reliable measurement instrument. It is considered that the scale might be used reliably in different cultures as well.