Abstract
Background: Self-care is considered as the best method of blood pressure control. Because the prevalence of hypertension in Arab countries is high and continuously increasing through the years, more attention is needed to evaluate patients' self-care for hypertension, to enable further studies to develop the appropriate intervention. The Self-care of Hypertension Inventory (SC-HI) is a scale that has been developed to measure the maintenance, monitoring, and management of a person with hypertension.
Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the psychometric properties of the Arabic version of the SC-HI scale among older adults.
Methods: A cross-cultural adaptation process was used, where structural validity was assessed through factor analysis and interobserver agreement using Cohen [kappa]. The reliability of internal consistency was determined through Cronbach's [alpha] and scale item correlation. Test-retest examined the interclass correlation and was tested by paired t test.
Results: The mean age of our sample is 63 +/- 7.8 years, and most were educated (illiterate patients, 14%). Some modification was done for the scale items. Item-level content validity index ranged between 0.85 and 1, and average scale-level content validity was 0.96. Interobserver adjustment showed high agreement. Cronbach's [alpha] was 0.89. Test-retest reliability showed no differences (t = -0.298, P = 0,767), and interclass correlation was 0.85 (95% confidence interval, 0.078-0.90; P < .01). Factor analysis extracted 2, 3, and 1 signal factors for maintenance, management, and confidence subscales, respectively.
Conclusion: The adapted Arabic version of SC-HI scale is shown to be valid and reliable among older adults. Further studies are need for further reliability analyses among large groups from various Arab countries.