| Problem. The problem of the study was to construct a valid and reliable inventory to determine the health beliefs of students from selected universities in Thailand based upon gender, geographical area, and program of study in high school.;Findings. The final Health Beliefs Inventory possessed a high level of internal consistency; an alpha reliability coefficient of.83 was generated. Subjects scored highest on the item "Sexually transmitted diseases are confined to the poor." Subjects scored lowest on the item "Healthy people are immune to communicable disease." Female students had a higher mean score in health beliefs than did male students. Science students had a higher mean score in health beliefs than did arts students.;Conclusions. All 60 items in the final Health Beliefs Inventory were acceptable for use in measuring health beliefs of Thai university students. Male and female students differed in their health beliefs. Students whose program of study in high school emphasized arts and sciences differed in their health beliefs.;Procedures. A preliminary inventory of health belief items was compiled from the literature and translated into the Thai language. The inventory used a Likert-type scale with five responses. A Thai jury of five specialists in Health Education who were recognized leaders in Health Education reviewed the inventory. Following revision of the inventory, a pilot evaluation of the revised inventory was conducted at Indiana University, the University of Iowa, and the University of Cincinnati involving 60 Thai students. Following the pilot evaluation, a sample of 1,610 freshmen was drawn from three universities in Bangkok, Thailand, and data were collected during the second semester of the 1986-87 academic year. For establishing reliability of the inventory, the data were item analyzed using Cronbach alpha and Pearson correlation techniques. Data were analyzed using a 3 x 2 x 3 ANOVA design. |
