Questionnaire development and validity to measure sexual intention among youth in Malaysia

BACKGROUND: From the Theory of Planned Behaviour perspective, sexual intention is determined by a permissive attitude, perception of social norms and perceived self-efficacy in performing sexual activity. The aim of this study was to develop and validate the Youth Sexual Intention Questionnaire (YSI-Q), which was designed to measure sexual intention among youths in Malaysia. METHODS: A total of 25 items were developed based on literature reviews encompassing four main constructs: sexual intention, attitude, social norms and self-efficacy. The YSI-Q then underwent a validation process that included content and face validity, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), reliability analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). This study was conducted on unmarried youths aged 18 to 22 years who were studying in colleges around Klang Valley, Malaysia. RESULTS: EFA supported the four factor structure, but five items were removed due to incorrect placement or low factor loading (<0.60). Internal reliability using Cronbach’s alpha ranged between 0.89 and 0.94. The CFA further confirmed the construct, convergent and discriminant validity of the YSI-Q with χ (2) = 392.43, df = 164, p < 0.001, χ (2)/df = 2.40, CFI = 0.93 and TLI = 0.92 and RMSEA = 0.08. CONCLUSION: The final set of YSI-Q consisted of 20 items measuring sexual intention (five items), attitude (five items), social norms (six items) and self-efficacy (four items) of practicing sexual activity. YSI-Q was shown to be a reliable and valid tool to be used among Malaysian youths. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12889-016-3949-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.