Abstract:

Mothers have key role in the infants’ care, so we must have self-efficacy to manage implement care necessary to promote children´s health. Recognizing the importance of mothers' self-efficacy in relation to preventive care for childhood diarrhea, this study contributes to disclose a scale that could be used in health services to guide health education strategies with the mothers. The study aimed to develop a scale to measure maternal self-efficacy in preventing childhood diarrhea and evaluate the psychometric properties of the instrument. This was a methodological study. Initially we proceeded to identify and deepen the theme of childhood diarrhea prevention through studies published in PubMed, CINAHL, Cochrane and LILACS, followed by the content validation enrolling seven judges; pretest with 31 mothers; application of the scale to 448 mothers children under 5 years; validation through Cronbach alpha, factor analysis, comparison of contrasted groups, predictive validity and test-retest reliability. The data was collected by interview using the Maternal Self-Efficacy Scale to Prevent Child Diarrhea (EAPDI) and a form that addressed the profile of mother and child. To make it possible for health professionals involved in the childhood diarrhea prevention through effective technologies in health education, they are lightweight, soft-hard or hard, it is urgent to know that maternal self-efficacy, so that may emphasize interventions in these protective factors of this disease with those mothers who most need. Thus, studies in the literature guided the operationalization of the first version of the scale (35 items) and the identification of four areas: food practices, home environment, maternal behavior and hygiene of the child / children. With the items theoretical analysis by judges, the scale reached content validity index of .84. It was performed factor analysis indicated the deletion of the item seven and the existence of two factors (family care, 15 items, and food practices / general, 9 items) in EAPDI. Comparing the contrasted groups, there was a negative correlation between scores prevent childhood diarrhea and previous occurrence of diarrhea in children (p = .001), with mothers who have older (p = .018). Through predictive validity, it was observed that high levels of maternal self-efficacy configure themselves into protective factor for childhood diarrhea. Cronbach alpha was .84 and the EAPDI intraclass correlation coefficient was .45. The EAPDI is a scale that can assess maternal self-efficacy to prevent childhood diarrhea, consisting of a relevant variable to be examined before use of any educational intervention aimed at reducing infant morbidity and mortality from diarrheal diseases.

Keywords:

Diarrhea, children, self-efficacy, psychometric scale, technology.