Design and validation of the Self-Care Behaviors Scale

Self-care constitutes a series of actions and behavior that contributes to individuals life, health and well-being maintenance and represents a relevant construct in diverse psychological areas. The purpose of this study is to develop the Self-Care Behaviors Scales and evaluate its psychometric properties. The sample included 235 individuals (M= 29.11 years, SD= 10.53) from northern Mexico. To analyze the structure, a factorial exploratory analysis, revealed the existence of three factors (physical self-care, psychological self-care, spiritual self-care) that would explain 54% of total covariance. A three-factor analysis of covariance allowed adequate goodness-of-fit indices and the calculation of the mean variance extracted. The scale obtained evidence of convergent and discriminant validity. The internal consistency indices of the total score and the subscales were high (between .93 to .96). The significant correlation between these factors with personal variables provided evidence of the concurrent validity of the scale.