The psychometric properties of the health locus of control scale with medical and surgical patients

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Abstract
Examined the psychometric properties of the Health Locus of Control (HLC) Scale with inpatients from medical and surgical wards (N = 111) at a Veterans Administration Medical Center. Factor analyses suggested that the two‐factor solution met important criteria that involved simple structure, parsimony, and psychological meaningfulness. Factor I was comprised entirely of salient items that were internally worded, and Factor II was comprised of salient externally worded items. Item remainder correlation coefficients were calculated; the lowest value was 0.18 for item 5, and the highest value was 0.45 for items 1 and 10. Cronbach's alpha was 0.63 for the internally worded items and 0.56 for the externally worded items. The psychometric properties were considered adequate, although results were somewhat lower than those reported in the original HLC article. Clinical application of the scale with medical and surgical inpatients is discussed with particular emphasis on outcome studies.