Psychometric Properties of a Symptom Management Self-Efficacy Scale for Women Living with HIV/AIDS

Abstract

Context-Many people with HIV/AIDS find it difficult to manage the symptoms of the disease, but by adopting effective symptom management behavior, they increase the potential of alleviating the burden of those symptoms. Self-efficacy is a recognized mediator of successful behavior change and is utilized by many researchers and clinicians when developing symptom management interventions. Despite this, an instrument measuring the self-efficacy of symptom management behavior specifically for people living with HIV/AIDS has not yet been made available.Objective-To introduce and test the psychometric properties of the HIV Symptom Management Self-Efficacy for Women Scale (HSM-SEWS) for women with HIV/AIDS. This scale, a new 9-item measurement instrument, was modified from the Chronic Disease Self-Efficacy Scale.Methods-In this study, psychometric testing focused on the reliability and validity of the HSM-SEWS instrument. Reliability was assessed using Cronbach's alpha. Exploratory factor analysis with oblique promax rotation was used to examine validity and test hypothetical associations.Results-Eighty-nine HIV-positive women were recruited and asked to complete the scale every four weeks for a total of 16 weeks. Factor analysis supported a one-factor solution explaining 93% of the variance among items. Internal consistency of the nine items was found to range from 0.83-0.93, with an overall Cronbach's alpha of 0.92.Conclusions-Psychometric analyses suggest that the HIV Symptom Management SelfEfficacy for Women Scale is a reliable and valid instrument that measures the self-efficacy of symptom management behavior in women with HIV/AIDS and can be used during interventions and in research targeting this area of health care research.

HIV symptom management self-efficacy mediates the relationship of internalized stigma and quality of life among people living with HIV in China

“…A composited score of HIV symptom management self-efficacy was calculated by summing the 10 items with a higher score indicating higher confidence on HIV symptom management. In one of the previous studies, a nine-item scale demonstrated good reliability and validity among PLHIV (Webel and Okonsky, 2011). In the present sample, the HIV symptom management self-efficacy scale had a Cronbach’s α of .94.…”

Depressive symptoms, self-esteem, HIV symptom management self-efficacy and self-compassion in people living with HIV

“…Reliability and validity of a nine-item, HIV-specific version of the scale were supported in a sample of women living with HIV/AIDS (N=89). Factor analysis yielded a one-factor solution accounting for 93% of the variance (Webel & Okonsky, 2011). That study did not include the item that captures the impact of symptom management self-efficacy on social relationships.…”

Validation of a Chinese Version of the Self-Efficacy for Managing Chronic Disease 6-Item Scale in Patients with Hypertension in Primary Care

“…Thus, there is a need for a measure which could be used as a screening method both at research and clinical practices. Sorts of self-efficacy instruments have been developed and tested throughout the last two decades [13][14][15]. However, to date, no instrument has been standardized for measuring self-efficacy in hypertension patients.…”