Validation of a questionnaire on attitudes and practice of physical activity and other healthy habits through the Delphi method

OBJECTIVE: Physical inactivity and sedentary lifestyle are an emerging individual, familiar and social public health problem. The aim of this work was to validate a new questionnaire to know the attitude towards physical activity and other habits in adolescents. METHODS: The Delphi method was used. It was developed in three phases: an initial phase of selection of the panel of experts, an exploratory phase in two rounds of voting using a Likert scale of 1 to 5, and statistical and qualitative analysis of the experts' contributions. The criteria for the choice of items were: average >3.5 and factor V of Aiken ≥0.7. Reliability was assessed with the Cronbach alpha coefficient. A pilot test was carried out to assess the understanding of the instrument. RESULTS: 21 experts agreed to participate. Their participation was 100% in the first round and 95.2% in the second one. Seven items did not meet the criteria. The final questionnaire included 93 questions and 11 dimensions: data of the student, father, mother, physical activity in the educational center, transportation, free time, psychosocial aspects of physical activity, attitude towards physical activity, food, other habits and health perception. A Cronbach's alpha of 0.974 was obtained. CONCLUSIONS: The results support the reliability and validity of the questionnaire. The Delphi method proved to be a useful technique for the proposed objective.