Attitudes of Polish adolescents towards energy drinks. Part 1. Development, validation and reliability testing of a scale to identify attitudes towards energy drinks

Introduction and objective: Attitudes towards food are one of the most important but often underestimated factors related to food consumption. In recent years, researchers have pointed to the growing popularity of energy drinks (EDs) among adolescents and emphasized health risks posed by energy drink (ED) consumption. A substantive and research gap has been found in the subject of identifying attitudes towards EDs. Objective: The aim of the study was to develop and validate a scale to identify adolescents’ attitudes towards EDs, and to examine this scale in terms of reliability. Material and methods: The scale was validated, including content validation, response process validation and statistical validation. Experts in identifying attitudes towards food participated in the content validation procedure. Response process validation was conducted in a pre-test sample of adolescents aged 13–19 years, while statistical validation was performed based on results obtained in a pilot study. Reliability was tested using Cronbach’s alpha. Results: At the beginning, the scale consisted of 28 statements. Performing content validation resulted in the elimination of 2 items from the scale. The last step of the procedure, reliability testing, was connected with removing another 5 statements from the scale. A final version of the scale to identify adolescents’ attitudes towards EDs consisted of 21 statements. Cronbach’s alpha of the scale was 0.856, indicating high reliability of this scale. Conclusions: The constructed scale is valid, reliable and therefore can be used as a research instrument in the identification of adolescents’ attitudes towards EDs, and also in investigating associations between these attitudes and behaviours related to ED consumption.