School health assessment tools: a systematic review of measurement in primary schools

• Published in: PeerJ (San Francisco, CA) CA), 2020-07, Vol.8, p.e9459-e9459, Article e9459
• Main Authors: Kazemitabar, Maryam, Moghadamzadeh, Ali, Habibi, Mojtaba, Hakimzadeh, Rezvan, Garcia, Danilo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Algorithms; Core curriculum; COSMIN risk of bias checklist; Elementary schools; Health care; Health education; Health Policy; Health promotion; Health services; Health-promoting schools; Measurement; Measuring instruments; Nurses; Nursing care; Pediatrics; Physical education; Psychiatry and Psychology; Psychometric properties; Public Health; Quantitative psychology; Questionnaires; Reliability and validity; Reviews; School construction; School health; School health assessment tools; School nurses; School principals; Science and Medical Education; Students; Studies; Systematic review; Validity
• ISSN: 2167-8359; 2167-8359
• DOI: 10.7717/peerj.9459

This systematic review aimed to investigate the psychometric properties of the school health's assessment tools in primary schools through COSMIN Risk of Bias checklist. We examined the studies that have addressed the measurement properties of school-health instruments to give a clear overview of the quality of all available tools measuring school health in primary schools. This systematic review was registered in PROPERO with the Registration ID: CRD42020158158. Databases of EBSCOhost, PubMed, ProQuest, Wily, PROSPERO, and OpenGrey were systematically searched without any time limitation to find all full-text English journal articles studied at least one of the COSMIN checklist measurement properties of a school-health assessment tool in primary schools. The instruments should be constructed based on a school health model. The eligible studies were assessed by COSMIN Risk of Bias checklist to report their quality of methodology for each measurement property and for the whole study by rating high, moderate or low quality. At the final screening just seven studies remained for review. Four studies were tool development, three of them were rated as "adequate" and the other study as "very good"; five studies examined the content validity, three of them were appraised as "very good", and the two remaining as "inadequate". All seven studies measured structural validity, three of them were evaluated as "very good", three other were scored as "adequate", and the last study as "inadequate". All the seven studies investigated the internal consistency, five of them were assessed as "very good", one was rated as "doubtful", and the last one as "inadequate". Just one study examined the cross-cultural validity and was rated as "adequate". Finally, all seven studies measured reliability, two of them were rated as "very good" and the rest five studies were appraised as "doubtful". All rating was based on COSMIN checklist criteria for quality of measurement properties assessment. The number of studies addressing school health assessment tools was very low and therefore not sufficient. Hence, there is a serious need to investigate the psychometric properties of the available instruments measuring school health at primary schools. Moreover, the studies included in the present systematic review did not fulfill all the criteria of the COSMIN checklist for assessing measurement properties. We suggest that future studies consider these criteria for measuring psychometric proper