Background: Promoting sexual- reproductive health literacy is one of the most important strategies for achieving the goals of sexual- reproductive health in different groups of women. Infertile women are one of the most vulnerable groups to the adverse effects of low levels of health literacy. Since no specific instrument exists for assessing the level of sexual- reproductive health literacy, therefore, this study aimed to develop and evaluate the psychometric characteristics of an instrument for measuring sexual and reproductive health literacy among infertile women ( Sexual and Reproductive Health Literacy instrument for infertile women: SRH-Life) .
Methods: This was a mixed method study with exploratory design which conducted from July 2018 to Jan 2020 in northern Iran. Semi structured interviews with infertile women, literature review and, expert panel comments were utilized to generate an item pool. Then, the psychometric properties of the instrument, validity and reliability were assessed.
Results: The initial instrument contained 78 items. Next, 10 experts evaluated content validity. Some items were removed and a provisional version of the instrument with 47 items was provided. Then, the face validity was performed by 10 infertile women. Finally, a random sample of 235 infertile women completed the instrument and construct validity were assessed. The exploratory factor analysis was performed, 35 items were loaded, which indicated a 4-factor solution for the instrument including reproductive health information (8 items), infertility and treatment information (9 items), sexual health information (8 items) and functional sexual- reproductive literacy (10 items) that jointly explained 55.3% of the variance observed. For reliability, internal consistency showed satisfactory results with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranging from 0.89 to 0.9. Intraclass correlation coefficient (test-retest analysis) showed acceptable stability for the instrument.
Conclusion: The results showed that Sexual and Reproductive Health Literacy instrument for infertile women (SRH-Life) is a valid and reliable measure for assessing sexual and reproductive health literacy among women with infertility.