Development and Validation of a Father Involvement in Health Measure

Area of Science:

• Child Health
• Pediatrics
• Psychometrics

Background:

• Father involvement positively impacts child development and health outcomes.
• Existing measures of father involvement in child health are limited.
• A validated tool is needed to assess father involvement in preschoolers' health.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate the Father Involvement in Health-Pre-School (FIH-PS) scale.
• To create a reliable and valid self-report measure for father involvement in child health.

Main Methods:

• Phase 1: Item generation (47 items) based on qualitative data and cognitive interviews with fathers.
• Phase 2: Psychometric validation with 560 fathers of preschoolers using Item Response Theory.
• Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to establish scale structure and reliability.

Main Results:

• The FIH-PS scale was reduced to 20 items, forming a 4-factor structure (Acute Illness, General Well-being, Emotional Health, Role Modeling).
• The scale demonstrated a bifactor structure, high internal consistency (Cronbach's α=0.953), and good discrimination.
• A sum-to-T-score crosswalk was created for standardized scoring.

Conclusions:

• The FIH-PS is a psychometrically sound measure for assessing father involvement in preschooler health.
• This scale can be used in research and clinical settings to understand and promote father engagement in child health.
• The FIH-PS provides a standardized way to measure father involvement across different domains of child health.