Relationship among five points, seven points and nine points scale of health assessment questionnaire administered to sedentary college-going girls

Abstract

The Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ) is a widely accepted tool for assessing functional health status and identifying health-related concerns. The reliability of Likert scales, which differ in the number of response options, is critical to ensuring measurement accuracy in health-related survey research. The present study aimed to examine and compare the reliability and consistency of three commonly used Likert-type scales, namely, 5-Point Scale, 7-Point Scale, and 9-Point Scale, when used in a health questionnaire administered to sedentary college-going girls. A total of 25 sedentary female students aged 17 to 20 years were randomly selected from Jesus and Mary College and Maitreyi College, University of Delhi. Each participant completed a 39-item health questionnaire on three occasions using each of the three Likert scales, with a two-day gap between administrations. Karl Pearson’s correlation coefficient was calculated to assess the relationship between the scales, and the method was employed to grade reliability. The findings revealed that the majority of variables demonstrated