Percepção de saúde: validação do The Health Perceptions Questionnaire para a população portuguesa

Abstract

Different scales have been developed and applied in order to assess the area of health, including the health perception of the individual. Increasingly, this is an extremely important phenomenon for interpretation of many other factors and variables that influence the individual and their health state. This study aimed primarily to validate the scale The Health Perceptions Questionnaire (HPQ) for the Portuguese population. The study included a total of 600 the participation of both genders, aged above eighteen and from the same geographical regions: Aveiro and Vila Nova de Gaia. The HPQ has 33 items evaluated by five points, a Likert scale. Of these 33 items, 27 form six subscales: current health (9 items), past health (3 items), health perspective (4 items), resistance to disease (4 items), concern for health (5 items) and orientation disease (2 items), the remaining six items are not used on the subscales, cover the rejection disease and attitudes with regard to going to the doctor (Davies et al., 1988). As a result of this study, a confirmatory factor analysis to the original creator of the model demonstrates that it is not possible to reach the goal, due to the fact that instrument does not show good adequacy rations over the proposed new factor model for the population studied.

Date of Award	2015
Original language	Portuguese
Supervisor	Maria Teresa Soares Souto (Supervisor)