Development and Validation of the Knowledge, Self-efficacy, Outcome Expectation and Behavior on Pesticide Exposure Prevention for Rice Farmers

Background: Rice farmers face the risk of exposure to pesticide. Assessment of knowledge, self-efficacy, and outcome expectation to promote personal protective equipment (PPE) use is important. This study aimed to develop and validate a social cognitive theory-based scale that focuses on knowledge, selfefficacy, outcome expectation and behavior on pesticide exposure prevention for rice farmers. Methods: We used the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing Guide as a validation framework to assess validity evidence: content validity, structural validity, discriminative validity and internal consistency. Structural validity was examined using exploratory factor analysis. Internal consistency was examined using Cronbach’s alpha values. Results: The content validity index scores ranged from 0.88 to 0.94 for four constructs. Exploratory factor analysis of social cognitive theory-based scale identified four factors that corresponded well with the four domains in social cognitive theory; namely knowledge, self-efficacy, outcome expectation and behavior. The Cronbach’s alpha for knowledge (0.88), self-efficacy (0.97), outcome expectation (0.87) and behavior (0.93) subscales were acceptable. Conclusion: The social cognitive theory-based scale on knowledge, self-efficacy, outcome expectation and behaviors on pesticide exposure prevention showed acceptable psychometric properties with respect to responses from rice farmers. This scale may have usefulness for public health personnel to assess change in knowledge, self-efficacy, outcome expectation and behaviors over time in intervention research.