• Jo Waller, Remo Ostini, Laura A V Marlow, Kirsten McCaffery, and Gregory Zimet.
• Health Behaviour Research Centre, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, UCL Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK. j.waller@ucl.ac.uk
• Prev Med. 2013 Jan 1; 56 (1): 35-40.

ObjectivePublic understanding of HPV is important to ensure informed participation in cervical cancer prevention programmes. While many studies have measured HPV knowledge, none has developed a validated measure for use across countries. We aimed to develop and validate such a measure.MethodItems tapping knowledge of HPV, HPV testing and HPV vaccination were developed from previous literature and with expert consultation. The 29-item measure was administered via the internet to 2409 adults in the UK, US and Australia in 2011. Classical test theory and item response theory were used to establish the measure's psychometric properties.ResultsTotal scale reliability was very good (α = 0.838), as was internal consistency for a 16-item general HPV knowledge subset (α = 0.849). Subsets of HPV testing and vaccination items showed reasonable test-retest reliability (r(test-retest) = 0.62 and 0.69) but moderate internal consistency (α = 0.52 and 0.56). Dimensionality analyses suggested that one item was not measuring the same construct as the remainder of the questionnaire. A 2-parameter logistic item response theory (IRT) model was fitted to the remaining 28 scale items.ConclusionsA structurally coherent set of items covering a range of important HPV knowledge was developed. Responses indicated a reliable questionnaire, which allowed the fitting of an IRT model.Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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