Development and preliminary psychometric evaluation of the vaginal douching practice scale.

BACKGROUND: Vaginal douching remains common in several settings despite its association with adverse reproductive health outcomes. A standardized instrument for assessing how frequently women perform vaginal douching in specific circumstances is lacking. OBJECTIVE: To develop the Vaginal Douching Practice Scale (VDPS) and examine preliminary evidence for its content validity, factor structure, and reliability among married women. METHOD: This methodological study included 423 married women aged 18 years and older. An initial 17-item pool was generated from the literature, reviewed for content, and pilot-tested with 50 women. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were conducted sequentially in the same sample; therefore, the CFA was treated as an internal model check rather than an independent confirmation. RESULTS: The mean age of participants was 33.34 ± 8.55 years. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin value was 0.959, and Bartlett's test of sphericity was significant (χ2 = 8,750.245, p < 0.001). EFA yielded a one-factor solution explaining 71.89% of the variance, with loadings ranging from 0.694 to 0.920. Internal consistency was very high (Cronbach's alpha = 0.97), split-half reliability was 0.93, and the two-week test-retest correlation in 31 participants was 0.92. CFA loadings ranged from 0.642 to 0.937; however, global model fit was inadequate (χ 2/df = 4.428, GFI = 0.786, RMSEA = 0.123, 90% CI = 0.116-0.131) despite several incremental indices exceeding 0.90. Composite reliability was 0.975 and average variance extracted was 0.694, but these values do not compensate for the poor global fit. CONCLUSION: The VDPS showed strong internal consistency and promising exploratory evidence; however, the proposed one-factor structure was not adequately supported by CFA. The instrument should be regarded as preliminary and requires item refinement and independent validation before routine clinical or research use.