Validation of a Questionnaire Developed to Evaluate a Pediatric eHealth Website for Parents.

Abstract

There is a need for health professionals to provide parents with not only evidence-based child health websites but also instruments to evaluate them. The main aim of this research was to develop a questionnaire for measuring users' evaluation of the usability, utility, confidence, the well-child section, and the accessibility of a Spanish pediatric eHealth website for parents. We further sought to evaluate the content validity and psychometric reliability of the instrument. A content validation study by expert review was performed, and the questionnaire was pilot tested. Psychometric analyses were used to establish scales through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Reliability studies were performed using Cronbach's alpha and two split-half methods. The content validation of the questionnaire by experts was considered as excellent. The pilot web survey was completed by 516 participants. The exploratory factor analysis excluded 27 of the 41 qualitative initial items. The confirmatory factor analysis of the resultant 14-item questionnaire confirmed the five initial domains detected in the exploratory confirmatory analysis. The goodness of fit for the competing models was established through fit indices and confirmed the previously established domains. Adequate internal consistency was found for each of the subscales as well as the overall scale.