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The Infant/Toddler Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (IT-HOME) Validity and Reliability Study for Turkey

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Abstract

Physical and social environments, particularly the home environment in infancy, bring substantial impacts on child development; therefore, growth may be promoted when the home environment is duly regarded. Ultimately, the present study was conducted with 203 infants and toddlers living in Ankara (51% were females) and attempted to adapt the Infant-Toddler Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (IT-HOME) into Turkish to evaluate the home environment for children up to 3 years of age. While 33% of the children were 3–12 months, 34% were 13–24 months, and 33% were 25–36 months. We collected the data using a demographic information form, the IT-HOME, and the Ages and Stages Questionnaires-Turkish Version (ASQ-TV). Accordingly, for linguistic validity, we calculated the consistency between the original scale and its back-translation to be 92%. Moreover, the Lawshe method adopted to analyze the expert opinions yielded content validity indices (CVI) to range between +0.88 and +1.00 for the dimensions of the IT-HOME. The analyses for criterion validity yielded positive and significant correlations between the dimensions of the IT-HOME and components of the ASQ-TV (r = 0.146–0.369). We then calculated the test-retest and interrater reliability coefficients to be 0.745 and 0.989, respectively. In conclusion, in the current study, the IT-HOME was found to demonstrate good initial interrater and test-retest reliability and content validity in a Turkish sample.

Highlights

  • IT-HOME is a worldwide used tool to assess the quality of the home environments of infants and toddlers.

  • This study’s showed that IT-HOME is a reliable measurement instrument for the infants and toddlers in Turkey.

  • This study’s showed that IT-HOME is a valid measurement instrument for the infants and toddlers in Turkey.

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  1. Ankara University, Faculty of Health Sciences, Kecioren, 06290, Ankara, Turkey

    Ezgi Findik & Neriman Aral

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This study was produced based on the doctoral thesis of Ezgi Fındık, conducted at the Graduate School of Health Sciences of Ankara University.

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Findik, E., Aral, N. The Infant/Toddler Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (IT-HOME) Validity and Reliability Study for Turkey. J Child Fam Stud 32, 2513–2521 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-023-02591-3

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