Assessment of Judgmental Validity of the Sinhala Household Water Insecurity Experiences (HWISE) Scale

Abstract

Sri Lanka lacks a suitable psychometric tool to assess water insecurity eff ecti vely. To address this issue, in the present study, the Household Water Insecurity Experiences (HWISE) scale was translated into Sinhala language and tested for its face and content validity. Using established guidelines, fi rst, face validity was evaluated with the parti cipati on of two subject matt er experts (SMEs). Then, Cohen’s Kappa stati sti c (CKS) was calculated to obtain the interrater reliability to establish face validity. Second, the Delphi process was conducted with fi ve SMEs to assess the content validity of the Sinhala HWISE scale. Subsequently, the Content Validity Index (CVI) for individual items (I-CVI), the overall scale (S-CVI), and S-CVI/UA (Universal Agreement) were uti lized to quanti fy the output of the Delphi process. The results indicated that the HWISE scale was content valid based on the results of Delphi and S-CVI, while the I-CVI and S-CVI/UA indicated some departure from the expected thresholds. Fleiss Kappa Stati sti c (FKS) revealed minor inconsistencies in the quanti fi ed opinions of the SMEs in the Delphi process, which indirectly impacted I-CVI and S-CVI/UA. Overall, the HWISE scale has met sati sfactory face and content validity.