Design and Content Validation using Expert Opinions of an Instrument Assessing the Lifestyle of Adults: The ‘PONTE A 100’ Questionnaire

Abstract

Lifestyle, a major determinant of health status, comprises a number of habits and behaviours that form a part of daily life. People with healthy lifestyles have a better quality of life, suffer less disease, and have a longer life expectancy. This work reports the design and content validation of a questionnaire—the ‘PONTE A 100’ questionnaire—assessing the lifestyle of adults. This collects information across five dimensions—‘Eating Habits’, ‘Physical Activity’, ‘Smoking and use of Alcohol and other Drugs’, ‘Emotional Wellbeing’, and ‘Safety and Non-intentional Injuries’—via the answering of a total 33 items. Psychometric validation of the instrument’s content was obtained via expert opinions. This was performed by two rounds of assessment and involved 34 experts representing different health science disciplines (mean experience, 27.4 ± 9.4 years). At the end of each round, adjustments were made according to their recommendations. Agreement between the experts was examined using the Aiken V test. A final V value of 0.95 (95% CI, 0.90–1.00) was obtained for the questionnaire as a whole, highlighting the validity of its content. The questionnaire would therefore appear to be an appropriate instrument for assessing the lifestyle of adults.