Abstract

Background: Hepatitis B is a problematic condition which can affect both patients and health systems. The fetus health effect, transmissibility of infection, disease screening during pregnancy and confronting the disease during pregnancy as a new diagnosis case have made this disease close to the reproductive health domain. A health need assessment is a first step in designing an equality health service, the aim of this study was the development and validation of the health need questionnaire of hepatitis B affected women in the reproductive health domain. Methods: Based on the specific design, this study had two phases. At the first step to develop the instrument, we conducted some qualitative interviews with hepatitis B affected women and reproductive health care providers. After analyzing, we developed a health need questionnaire, the psychometric characteristics of which were determined in the second phase. Results: After analyzing the data, we received 88 codes and 186 items. The research team removed 9 items during the face and content validity based on the cut off point of Impact Score, content validity ratio (CVR) and the content validity index(CVI). To elucidate, the questionnaire with 79 items developed in the psychometric evaluation phase. Internal consistency of the total scale was good with Cronbach alpha coefficient 0.87, and Spearman correlation coefficient of 0.84 that indicated good stability. In the construct validity by exploratory factor analysis, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) index was higher than 0.90 and also the Bartlett test of sphericity was significant (P < 0.001). Concerning the cumulative percentage of the variance, the 4 factors determined 54.99 of the total variance. Conclusions: This study lead to development and validation of a questionnaire to evaluate the health needs of hepatitis B affected women in the reproductive health domain.