Omid Abobakri
1, Homayoun Sadeghi-Bazargani
2*, Mohammad Asghari-Jafarabadi
3, Mohammadbagher alizadeh-Aghdam
4, Ali Imani
5, Jafarsadegh Tabrizi
6, Shaker Salarilak
7, Mostafa Farahbakhsh
81 Department of Biostatistics & Epidemiology, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran
2 Road Traffic Injury Research Center, Statistics & Epidemiology Department, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran
3 Medical Education Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran
4 Department of Social Science, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran
5 Iranian Center of Health Management (IceHM), Department of Health Services Management, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran
6 Department of Health Services Management, Health Services Management Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran
7 Department of Public Health, Islamic Azad University of Tabriz Branch, Tabriz, Iran
8 Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran
Abstract
Background: The aim of present study was to develop and validate an appropriate socioeconomic status (SES) assessment questionnaire to be used through health studies in Iranian urban households.
Methods: The study was conducted through a mixed method study design in Tabriz, northwest of Iran in 2014. It was conducted in several stages including: development of initial version, qualitative study, feasibility evaluation, and assessment of the validity as well as the reliability. The internal consistency, test-retest reliability, content validity, concurrent validity and construct validity were assessed.
Results: With respect to the assessment of construct validity, 5 domains (factors) were extracted including: main factor (α=0.84), self-evaluation of expenditure capacity (α=0.96), wealth (α=0.70), home and furniture (α=0.66) and costs related to health (α=0.55). Intraclass correlation coefficient was above 0.6 for all factors except for wealth domain.
Conclusion: The questionnaire developed appeared to be a valid and reliable SES assessment tool. It may be of value to be used not only as a complementary questionnaire in most health surveys or clinical studies, but also as a main questionnaire in health equity and health economics research.