Evaluating content validity and test-retest reliability of the children's health risk behavior scale.

Objective: Describe the instrument development process and report the validity and reliability of the Children's Health Risk Behavior Scale (CHRBS), a scale designed to screen for health risk behaviors among youth aged 10-13 Years.

Methods: Domain identification and item generation using the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and testing relevance and test-retest reliability among a target audience sample of 77 fifth graders in their classrooms in two separate public school districts.

Results: Youth performed their tasks as expert item reviewers effectively.

Smoking initiation prevention among youths: implications for community health nursing practice.

Cigarette smoking among youths has long been documented as a national problem affecting health and economic status in the United States. A number of studies have documented that cigarette-smoking initiation occurs primarily between late childhood and young adolescence. This evidence has brought about the need for awareness among community health nurses to find and deliver effective antismoking programs to reduce the prevalence of youth smoking initiation.