Attitude Towards Using Birth Control Pills Scale (Herold & Goodwin, 1980)

Perception of birth control medicine as a means of contraception in adolescents and young adults; 14 Items 4-6 Item subscales, Ages 13-20

Populations: Adolescents, Young adults
Age ranges: 13-20
Languages: English
Countries: Canada

Items

Subscales

Effectiveness, 4 Items
Safety, 6 Items,
Anxiety, 4 Items

Item descriptions by Subscale:

Item Stem:

“I think that using birth control pills is...”

Effectiveness

Reliable-unreliable
Effective-ineffective
Efficient-inefficient
Adequate-inadequate

Safety

Good-bad
Healthy-sick
Beneficial-harmful
Positive-negative
Safe-dangerous
Useful-useless

Anxiety

Calm-anxious
Restful-nervous
Pleasant-unpleasant
Strong-weak

Items taken from a factor loading table and may not accurately represent items as presented to participants.

Responses

Items used a 7 point scale ranging between each of pair of adjectives.

Scoring

Not Reported

Citations

Herold, E. S., & Goodwin, M. S. (1980). Development of a scale to measure attitudes toward using birth control pills. The Journal of Social Psychology, 110(1), 115-122. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.1980.9924230

Scoring breakdown

Measure development

Significant design input from young people
Cognitive interviews with young people
Expert input

Validity

Unknown: Face validity
Green: Convergent validity
Green: Construct validity

Reliability

Green: Internal consistency
Unknown: Test-retest

Ease of use

Unknown: Readability

Definitions

Face validity: How well a measure appears to represent the construct it is supposed to be measuring.

Convergent validity: How well a measure correlates with other hypothetically-related measures.

Construct validity: The extent to which a measure reflects the construct it was designed to evaluate.

Internal consistency: The extent to which items in a scale capture aspects of the same construct.

Test-retest: The degree to which measurement scores are consistent over a short period of time (usually 2 weeks).

Readability: The ease with which a reader can understand the questionnaire items.

Key

Green: Meets validation criteria
Red: Does not meet validation criteria
Unknown: Evidence not available