Abstract
Self-efficacy (Bandura, 1986, 1997) is the belief that one carry out a behavior necessary to reach a desired goal, that is, achieve an expected outcome. In Japan, however, childhood asthma's self-efficacy has never been wholly evaluated. The purpose of this study was to develop the persisted Childhood Asthma's Self-Efficacy Scale for long-term management (CASES) and to evaluate its reliability and validity.
An instrument of CASES prepared draft a 22-item. These items were generated based on literature and the developmental stage of children. A specially-designed questionnaire survey was conducted on 133 patients with persisted asthmatic children in hospital.
An explanatory factor analysis on CASES revealed two factors comprised of 6 items. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was more than.75 for the internal consistently and reliability of the CASES. The reliability of the CASES was confirmed by a split-half method correlation coefficient of.73. Construct validity for analysis by structural equation modeling revealed that CASES were significantly related with burden to long-term asthma management and asthmatic symptom control.
Thus, the CASES may be clinically useful to evaluate patients' SE for long-term management of persisted childhood asthma in the constant standards.
