Development and validation of a questionnaire for evaluating knowledge of risk factors for teen depression among health care trainees of a Nigerian university

Introduction Increasing knowledge of factors predisposing individuals to depression appears to be an important preventive strategy. However, there is no validated instrument for evaluating knowledge of risk factors for depression among adolescents. Therefore, we aimed to develop and validate a questionnaire to assess knowledge of risk factors for teen depression. Methods Extensive literature search and expert consultations were carefully conducted. The content, face, and convergent validity of the prefinal Knowledge of Risk Factors for Teen Depression Questionnaire (KRFD-Q) were performed. The Cronbach's alpha and test-retest reliability of KRFD-Q were conducted. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used to delineate the final items into distinct clusters. Participants' demographic characteristics were presented using descriptive statistics. All analyses were performed using SPSS version 20. Results A total of 17 items were generated after an extensive literature search and expert consultations. Two items were considered as repetitions and thus deleted. The overall Cronbach's alpha of KRFD-Q was 0.72. Test-retest reliability (r = 0.83, P < .0001) and convergent validity (r = 0.61, P = .034) were satisfactory. The corrected item-total correlation of KRFD-Q ranged from 0.13 to 0.45. The EFA identified three factors, (1) family abuse, stress, and self-criticism (7 items), (2) social/relationship factors (5 items), and (3) genetic and economic factors (3 items). Discussion The findings of this study demonstrate that 15-item KRFD-Q developed is satisfactorily valid and reliable to measure the knowledge of risk factors for teen depression among university undergraduate students.