Development and preliminary testing of a questionnaire to measure mobile health information-seeking behaviour in people with cancer

Aim: The aim of the study was to develop and psychologically test the mobile health information-seeking behaviour (MHISB) questionnaire in people with cancer. Design: Instrument development. Methods: The study was conducted in three phases in a southeastern city of China from May 2017 to April 2018. In phase one, an item pool was constructed based on a literature review and semistructured interviews. In phase two, expert evaluation and cognitive interviews were used to evaluate the content validity of the questionnaire. In phase three, a cross-sectional study was conducted with people with cancer. Cronbach's alpha was calculated for reliability analysis. Validity evaluation included content validity and construct validity. Results: The developed MHISB questionnaire has four dimensions (information-seeking frequency, information-seeking self-efficacy, health information evaluation and information-seeking willingness) and 25 items. Psychometric findings were satisfactory and supported the questionnaire's reliability. Conclusions: The construction process of the MHISB questionnaire was scientific and feasible. The MHISB questionnaire had acceptable validity and reliability, and it requires further improvement in future studies.