Examining The Validity Of Self-Care For Black Women: A Mixed Methods Analysis
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Date
2018
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Department
Psychology
Program
Doctor of Philosophy
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This item is made available by Morgan State University for personal, educational, and research purposes in accordance with Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Other uses may require permission from the copyright owner.
Abstract
This study utilizes a mixed methods sequential QUAL + QUAN study to examine the validity of a self-care measure in a sample of Black women. There is minimal empirical literature exploring the salience of self-care in Black women and how it may influence health outcomes in this population. Further, there are few assessments of self-care. Self-care assessments developed by Saakvitne et al. (1996) and Butler (2010) fail to examine psychometric properties of the measure. The purpose of this study was to determine if existing instruments of self-care demonstrate content and construct validity in a population of Black women. This required the use of mixed methods: interviews and focus groups with 12 Black women self-care experts, and a survey using the combined Saakvitne et al. (1996) and Butler (2010) 7-factor self-care assessment with a parallel sample of 223 Black women. The constant comparison method was conducted to develop a conceptual framework of self-care for Black women, and quantitative data allowed for psychometric analyses using factor analysis, item analysis, and differential item functioning to examine content and construct validity. The qualitative findings suggest self-care is a practice employed to assist a Black woman with enduring challenges and restoring her health. The quantitative findings suggest the self-care assessments are unidimensional, load sufficiently on one factor, but there are mixed findings on the fit of the one-factor model, and many of the items differ by socioeconomic status. Beyond the factor structure of self-care for Black women, there was minimal congruence between the conceptual framework, derived from qualitative data, and the items derived from the survey. Findings from this study can be used to make recommendations for how to measure self-care for Black women seeking to track their self-care.