title: The asthma belief survey: development and testing.
abstract: Accurate evaluation of asthma self-efficacy is essential to the effective management of asthma. This article describes the development and testing of the Asthma Belief Survey (ABS). The instrument is a 15-item tool that uses a 5-point self-report scale to measure asthma self-efficacy in relation to daily asthma maintenance and an asthma crisis. This instrument was tested with a sample of 79 African American school children, who attended eight inner-city elementary schools. The mean age of the sample was 11.05 years with a range of 8 to 14 years. The majority of students had been diagnosed with asthma prior to the age of 5 years. The Asthma Belief Survey demonstrated good psychometric properties: good Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient (.83), coherence as a single scale measuring children's self-efficacy in treating their own asthma, and significant relationships with scales of asthma knowledge (r = .51, p < .000) and asthma self-care practices (r = .52, p < .001). The Asthma Belief Survey has sound reliability and validity evidence to support its use to measure a child's asthma self-management self-efficacy. The practitioner can use this instrument to assess a child's self-efficacy in the areas of asthma health maintenance and avoidance of asthma episodes.
authors.affiliation: Niehoff School of Nursing, Loyola University, Chicago, IL 60626-3249, USA. bvelsor@luc.edu
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Velsor-Friedrich
authors.forename: Therese D
authors.initials: TD
authors.lastname: Pigott
authors.forename: Brenda
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Srof
authors.forename: Robin
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Froman
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001741:Black or African American / Q000523:psychology; D001249:Asthma / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000523:psychology; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011204:Poverty Areas; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012648:Self Care / Q000523:psychology*; D020377:Self Efficacy; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States