Towards the development of scales to measure 'will' to promote heart health within health organizations in Canada

Abstract

This paper describes the development and psychometric evaluation of scales measuring the dimensions of 'will' (belief, confidence, prior action and desire) for heart health promotion specifically and health promotion in general at both an individual and organizational level. Content validity was established through a series of focus groups and expert opinion assessments, based on a compilation of capacity-assessment instruments developed by other provinces involved in the Canadian Heart Health Initiative and the literature. Psychometric analyses of questionnaire data provided empirical evidence of the construct validity and reliability of the 16 individual and 21 organizational level 'will' scales. A series of principal component analyses assisted in verifying the unidimensionality of the measures and all scales yielded high internal consistencies with Cronbach's alpha coefficients ranging between 0.73 and 0.96. These measures can be used by both researchers and practitioners for assessing the 'will' to promote heart health specifically and health promotion in general.

The Worksite Health Promotion Capacity Instrument (WHPCI): development, validation and approaches for determining companies' levels of health promotion capacity

“…Both components - outcome expectation and efficacy - show similarities to Bandura's social learning theory, whereby an intent to change individual behavior is then probable when the person has a high level of self-efficacy and a positive outcome expectation regarding the change in behavior [29]. Although this theory pertains to the individual level, the experts participating in the focus group found aspects of the theory relevant to willingness at the organizational level as well, as was found by another study [14]. Another element of the collective willingness to implement WHP was seen as the extent to which the company views the health of its employees as its responsibility.…”

“…[11-13]]. Similar to authors of studies on the capacity for heart health promotion, which look at factors such as will and an extensive infrastructure as being key in health promotion efforts [11,14,15], the authors of this study developed a WHPC model that takes into account the willingness of a company to implement WHP and the existence of a management process for ensuring its successful implementation. By measuring these two dimensions, it is then possible to place companies into four different categories based on their level of health promotion capacity.…”

ParticipACTION: Baseline assessment of the 'new ParticipACTION': A quantitative survey of Canadian organizational awareness and capacity

“…Infrastructure refers to organizational knowledge, human and financial resources, and organizational processes [12]. Will is defined by prior actions, planning, and setting priorities [12] as well as the predisposition or the motivation to undertake activities, such as health or PA promotion, and the belief of the importance of those activities [14]. An organization's capacity based on its leadership, will, and infrastructure should influence the extent to which ParticipACTION's activities can be adopted and implemented within those organizations.…”

The Relationship Between Perceived Social Capital and the Health Promotion Willingness of Companies

“…Similar is reported in another study. 21 The focus group experts also deemed the degree to which health promotion is discussed within the company a requirement for pronounced HPW (Item 2; Table 1: "In our company, the subject of employee health promotion is often discussed") as they consider this an outward expression of the willingness to engage in WHP. By making health promotion a topic of discussion, the acceptance of WHP also becomes a company norm, which increases the probability of adoption.…”

“…20 This concept is based on the assumption that health promotion willingness (HPW) forms the foundation for WHP implementation and is a key factor in building health promotion capacity. 14,[21][22][23] Further knowledge must therefore be gained about the influencing factors of HPW. In our study, we focus on the relationship between the perceived HPW of a company and the perceived interconnectedness of its members as an internal characteristic of the company's organizational structure.…”