What is it about?
Alcohol consumption during pregnancy can lead to various problems in the fetus, collectively known as fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD), ranging from fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) to neurocognitive and behavioral developmental disorders. Despite these negative outcomes, alcohol consumption during pregnancy is common in Brazil as well as in many other places worldwide. To further investigate the aspects surrounding this topic, we developed a self-reported questionnaire to measure college students' knowledge about the effects of alcohol on pregnancy. The questionnaire was called the Fetal Alcohol Consequences Test (FACT) and consists of 12 statements covering the main aspects of the subject. We conducted a psychometric assessment of the FACT questionnaire using a sample of 768 Brazilian university students. We found that, apparently, Brazilian college students have higher knowledge about the topic than other population groups. Furthermore, we identified some sociodemographic factors associated with greater knowledge: female gender, age between 41 and 50 years old, being married, women with previous pregnancies, having living children, having attended private high schools, and being a student in the Health Sciences field.
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Why is it important?
College students are one group with high rates of alcohol consumption. Often, this consumption is associated with risky sexual behaviors, such as unprotected sex. In this scenario, the chances of unplanned pregnancy in this population are significant. Developing a tool to measure this population's knowledge about the topic is an interesting starting point for both identifying knowledge gaps and building public policies aimed at this target population.
Perspectives
There are few validated tools to measure students' knowledge about the effects of alcohol consumption during pregnancy. In this context, we hope the FACT questionnaire can be applied to different populations and validated in other sociocultural contexts.
Guilherme Leite
Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Development and psychometric evaluation of a questionnaire to measure university students’ knowledge on the effects of alcohol use during pregnancy, Frontiers in Public Health, May 2024, Frontiers,
DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1399333.
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