Abstract
BACKGROUND: Unhealthy lifestyles pose significant threat to public health. This study aimed to assess the validity and reliability of a Kurdish version of the HPLP-II instrument among Kurdish healthcare providers, whose society and culture differ from that of North America and Spain, where the instrument was developed.
METHODS: The instrument was translated into Kurdish, back translated, and pilot tested to ascertain cultural sensitivity. It was then evaluated using a convenience sample of 460 healthcare providers in the Kurdistan region, northern Iraq using a principal components factor analysis.
RESULTS: The order of factors was entirely identical to those isolated previously during the psychometric assessment of the English language version. The majority of our study participants were male (55%). In addition, 39.2% of participants were nurses. In addition, 42% of participants had less than five years of working experience. Furthermore, 82.1% of our study population held a high school diploma. The mean (SE) of Physical Activities dimension was low (15.3 ± 4.8) compared to Spiritual Growth dimension (24.5 ± 4.4). Moreover, the Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the overall HPLP-II questionnaire was 0.870; however, the nutrition dimension was low (0.622) compared to Physical Activities dimension (0.792). Furthermore, the correlation between items ranged from 0.099 to 0.611.
CONCLUSIONS: The Kurdish version of the HPLP-II demonstrated initial reliability and validity. It is a precious tool to evaluate and assess lifestyle and lifestyle interventions built to improve the health of Kurds.