Psychometric validation of the children's environmental health questionnaires in community nurses

Objectives To translate, cross-cultural adapt and psychometrically validate the Children's Environmental Health Knowledge Questionnaire (ChEHK-Q) and the Children's Environmental Health Skills Questionnaire (ChEHS-Q) for community nurses in China. Design This was an observational, cross-sectional study undertaken in two phases: (1) translation and cultural adaptation process; (2) psychometric evaluation. Sample A total of 294 nurses from 23 community health service centers in cities of Henan province participated in the study. Methods These two questionnaires were analysed psychometrically based on IRT. ChEHK-Q was analyzed based on basic Rasch Model, and ChEHS-Q based on Rating Scale Model (RSM). EFA, expert validity, threshold analysis, retest reliability, item and individual reliability were used to evaluate the psychometric attributes of these two questionnaires. Results The Infit and Outfit values for most items are within reasonable limits. The person reliability of ChEHK-Q was 0.85 and the item reliability was 0.97. The person reliability of ChEHS-Q was 0.94 and the item reliability was 0.93. The test-retest reliability of the ChEHK-Q was 0.85 and the ChEHS-Q was 0.87. Conclusions ChEHK-Q and ChEHS-Q are reliable and valid instruments with satisfactory psychometric properties for nurses in China. Future studies should recruit a more representative sample to verify the applicability of these two questionnaires.