Development and validation of the parents' cognitive perception inventory of disaster effects on children's well-being (PCP-DCWB)

Najibeh Atazadeh; Hassan Mahmoodi; Parvin Sarbakhsh; Abdolreza Shaghaghi

doi:10.1186/s40359-022-00918-1

Development and validation of the parents' cognitive perception inventory of disaster effects on children's well-being (PCP-DCWB)

BMC Psychol. 2022 Sep 3;10(1):212. doi: 10.1186/s40359-022-00918-1.

Authors

Najibeh Atazadeh¹, Hassan Mahmoodi², Parvin Sarbakhsh³, Abdolreza Shaghaghi⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Health Education and Promotion, Faculty of Health, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Golgasht Ave., Tabriz, Iran.
² Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Research Institute for Health Development, Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences, Sanandaj, Iran.
³ Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Faculty of Health, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Golgasht Ave., Tabriz, Iran.
⁴ Department of Health Education and Promotion, Faculty of Health, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Golgasht Ave., Tabriz, Iran. shaghaghir@tbzmed.ac.ir.

Abstract

Background: Parents' cognition about the type and nature of consequences a disaster may pose on the children's psychosocial health, could be a major protective factor against the long-term overwhelming complications. Given the lack of a reliable instrument to measure parents' cognition about disasters' effects on children's well-being, this study was conducted to develop and validate the parents' cognitive perception inventory of disaster effects on children's well-being (PCP-DCWB).

Methods: In this cross-sectional study 300 parents of the survived primary school aged children from the Iran's northwest earthquake on August 2012 were recruited in the city of Varzegan. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was applied to identify the subcomponents and Cronbach's alpha and Guttmann Split-half coefficients were calculated to assess the internal consistency reliability of the scale.

Results: Structural indicators of the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure (0.69) and Bartlett's test of Sphericity (P < 0.001, df = 153, X² = 618.35) verified interpretability of the EFA output. Applying principal component analysis and direct oblimin rotation in the EFA four latent factors were identified (i.e., perception about child overall mental health, coping with trauma's long-term effects, children or parents' continuing memory of past disaster and perception about behavioral and educational problems) which explained 49.32% of the total variance. The estimated Cronbach's alpha and split-half reliability coefficients (0.71 and 0.52 respectively) supported good internal consistency of the instrument.

Conclusion: The study findings revealed sound psychometric attributes of the PCP-DCWB to be applied in assessment of parents' cognition about psychological impacts of a traumatic event on the survived children. The instrument application can shed light on level of pre-disaster preparations in local, national and international scales and help effectiveness assessment of interventions that target maintenance of psycho-social well-being among disaster-affected survivors over time.

Keywords: Children’s well-being; Measure development; Parents’ cognition; Trauma effects.

MeSH terms

Child
Cognition
Cross-Sectional Studies
Disasters*
Humans
Parents* / psychology
Perception
Reproducibility of Results
Surveys and Questionnaires