Test-retest reliability of a questionnaire to assess the knowledge and attitude of dental students toward tobacco counseling services

Abstract

Objective: To determine the test-retest reliability of a new questionnaire designed to assess the attitude of students in a Nigerian dental school to tobacco cessation services. Materials and Methods: A self-administered questionnaire was administered twice at 4 weeks interval to the same set of final year dental students (N = 36) in one of the Nigerian dental schools. Ten questions were randomly selected from the 35-item questionnaire. Intra-class correlation (ICC) coefficients at 95% confidence interval were computed for each selected item and the Cronbach′s alpha coefficients were calculated to assess the internal consistency of the questionnaire. Results: The results showed that the least Cronbach′s alpha value was 0.49 and the highest was 0.98. Only two items had less than a substantial agreement level (0.80). The results also indicated that the ICC coefficient is very highly statistically significant (P < 0.001). Conclusion: The questionnaire demonstrated adequate test-retest reliability to assess the attitude of dental students to tobacco cessation services.

Keywords

• Dental students
• questionnaires
• reliability
• tobacco cessation