A scale development study for evaluating the dietary behaviors of patients with heart failure

Monitoring the dietary status of patients with heart failure (HF) and preventing malnutrition are of great importance in the prognosis of the disease.The study was conducted to develop a measurement tool that determines the dietary behaviors of patients with HF.The draft scale consisting of 124 items designed by the researcher following with the literature was reduced to a draft scale consisting 49 items after the evaluation of clinical experts' and academicians' opinions. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Cronbach's Alpha were employed in the analysis of the data.According to the results, SDBHF was found to consist of 4 sub-scales and 19 items. The lowest score that could be obtained from the 19-item final form of the scale was 19, and the highest score was 76. Increased scores mean that patients with HFeat according to the recommendations of the guidelines, clinical experts and academicians. The Cronbach's alpha of the scale was found to be 0.72.Our newly developed SDBHF was shown to be a valid and reliable tool for determining the dietary behaviors of patients with HF. The SDBHF can be used to detect and manage dietary behaviors that shapes the quality of life and prognosis of patients with HF. The SDBHF can used as a single dimension scale rather than its sub-scales.