title: Psychometric assessment of the Behavior and Attitudes Questionnaire for Healthy Habits: measuring parents' views on food and physical activity.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To assess parents' perspectives of their home environments to establish the validity of scores from the Behavior and Attitudes Questionnaire for Healthy Habits (BAQ-HH).
  
  
  METHODS
  In the present descriptive study, we surveyed a cross-sectional sample of parents of pre-school children. Questionnaire items developed in an iterative process with community-based programming addressed parents' knowledge/awareness, attitudes/concerns and behaviours about healthy foods and physical activity habits with 6-point rating scales. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to psychometrically evaluate scores from the scales.
  
  
  METHODS
  English and Spanish versions of the BAQ-HH were administered at parent-teacher conferences for pre-school children at ten Head Start centres across a five-county agency in autumn 2010.
  
  
  METHODS
  From 672 families with pre-school children, 532 parents provided responses to the BAQ-HH (79 % response rate). The majority was female (83 %), Hispanic (66 %) or white (16 %), and ages ranged from 20 to 39 years (85 %).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Exploratory and confirmatory analyses revealed a knowledge scale (seven items), an attitude scale (four items) and three behaviour subscales (three items each). Correlations were identified between parents' perceptions of home activities and reports of children's habits. Differences were identified by gender and ethnicity groupings.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  As a first step in psychometric testing, the dimensionality of each of the three scales (Knowledge, Attitudes and Behaviours) was identified and scale scores were related to other indicators of child behaviours and parents' demographic characteristics. This questionnaire offers a method to measure parents' views to inform planning and monitoring of obesity-prevention education programmes.
authors: 1 School of Family, Consumer, and Nutrition Sciences, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115, USA.
authors: Beverly W
authors: BW
authors: Henry
authors: 2 Department of Educational Technology, Research and Assessment, College of Education, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, USA.
authors: Thomas J
authors: TJ
authors: Smith
authors: 1 School of Family, Consumer, and Nutrition Sciences, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115, USA.
authors: Saadia
authors: S
authors: Ahmad
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002652:Child Behavior; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004032:Diet; D015444:Exercise; D006184:Habits; D015438:Health Behavior; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006630:Hispanic or Latino; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009765:Obesity / Q000517:prevention & control; D010290:Parents; D010465:Perception; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*; D044465:White People; D055815:Young Adult