RELIABILITY, VALIDITY, AND COMPOSITION OF A SUBSET OF THE CENTERS-FOR-DISEASE-CONTROL AND PREVENTION ACQUIRED-IMMUNODEFICIENCY-SYNDROME KNOWLEDGE QUESTIONNAIRE IN A SAMPLE OF HOMELESS AND IMPOVERISHED ADULTS

OBJECTIVES. Measures of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)-rela ted knowledge that have good psychometric properties are needed to eva luate the impact of educational interventions, particularly among impo verished populations. Few measures that satisfy these requirements are available. The authors describe the psychometric characteristics and composition of a subset of 21 AIDS knowledge items from the questionna ire used by the National Center for Health Statistics. METHODS. The st udy was conducted with a convenience sample of women and their signifi cant others or close friends in nine homeless shelters and 11 resident ial drug recovery programs in the skid row area of Los Angeles from 19 91 to 1993. Trained nurses and outreach workers collected data from 48 6 predominately African-American adults before delivery of well-establ ished, culturally sensitive AIDS educational intervention. A subset of 334 participants were re-interviewed 6 months later. RESULTS. A total scale score was calculated from a one-factor solution, and two subsca le scores were formed based on a two-factor solution. One subscale was composed of primarily cognitive items, whereas the second subscale co ntained mainly transmission-related items. The internal consistency re liability of the overall scale was 0.89; the two subscales had alphas of 0.80 and 0.92. The measures have face validity, and support for con vergent validity was found. Further, even though AIDS knowledge in the sample was relatively high, all three measures showed marked improvem ent in the sub-sample of respondents who were re-interviewed after rec eiving AIDS-related educational information. CONCLUSIONS. These measur es show promise for assessing AIDS knowledge and the efficacy of AIDS education programs in vulnerable populations. The findings reported he re, however, are preliminary. Test-retest reliability needs to be exam ined, and additional studies are needed with samples that are more cul turally diverse and include socially isolated individuals.