The Adolescent Lifestyle Questionnaire: Development and Psychometric Testing

Abstract

This paper describes the development and psychometric testing of an instrument designed to measure healthy lifestyle in adolescents. The Adolescent Lifestyle Questionnaire (ALQ) was tested on 292 adolescents residing in eastern Canada using item analysis, factor analysis, and reliability measures. Factor analysis isolated seven dimensions to a healthy lifestyle in adolescents, which accounted for 56.0% of the variance in the 43-item measure. The seven factors were: identity awareness, nutrition, physical par-ticipaction, safety, health awareness, social support, and stress management. The alpha reliability coefficient for the total scale is .91; alpha coefficients for the subscales range from .60 to .88. The instrument warrants further testing and development with different adolescent populations. The instrument will enable researchers to investigate lifestyle patterns in adolescents and to assess the impact of interventions on lifestyle change in this population.