Determination of the psychometric properties of the Patients' Self-Efficacy Scale in blood pressure patients.

Introduction: This study was designed to determine self-efficacy and its related factors in patients with hypertension.

Materials and methods: This study is descriptive-sectional from the correlation. A total of 250 patients from a blood pressure clinic of Semnan city (in Iran) completed Medication Understanding and Use Self-Efficacy Scale were randomly selected in 2017. Data were analyzed using variance, Pearson's Correlation, and χ² using the LISREL 8.8 software.

Results: The items 1, 6, 7, and 8 have high correlation (at least higher than 0.60), indicating the possibility of aggregation of these four variables in the first factor (taking medication), and the four items 2, 3, 4, and 5 are highly correlated with each other, which are the second factor (learning about medication). In addition, Cronbach's α of reliability (taking medication) for the first factor was 0.67 and 0.63 for the second factor (learning about medication) and 0.69 for the whole scale.

Conclusion: The effectiveness of blood pressure self-efficacy is an appropriate tool for measure-taking responsibility for the time and taking medications by patients, and researchers can use it as a valid tool in therapeutic, psychological, and health research.