The development and evaluation of the hypertension temporal orientation (HTO) scale

Temporal orientation is a multidimensional concept that describes the perception of time among individuals. Time perception is structured by life experiences and can vary depending upon the particular context involved. Whether a person is past-, present- or future-oriented has been shown to influence his/her approach and reaction to health situations. Because the management of hypertension is based on achieving some future health state, hypertension provides a context in which an individual's time perspective may be particularly influential. One purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate a scale to measure temporal orientation that was specific to hypertension, namely the hypertension temporal orientation (HTO) scale. Data were collected via telephone interviews with 300 people who had been diagnosed by a physician as having hypertension. Principal components factor analysis revealed three dimensions of hypertension temporal orientation: (1) a nonexperiential domain; (2) an experiential disease domain; and (3) an experiential treatment domain with coefficient alpha estimates of 0.76, 0.66, and 0.63, respectively. The HTO scale was significantly discriminant of African Americans and whites on the experiential treatment domain whereby African Americans were more present-oriented regarding the daily management (or treatment) of hypertension as compared to whites. Additional evidence for the validity of the HTO scale was found with temporal orientation group comparisons on health perceptions. The findings provide early support for the reliability and validity of the HTO scale for measuring temporal orientation among people with hypertension.