Adaptation and validation of social accountability measures in the context of contraceptive services in Ghana and Tanzania

Background: Changes in the values, attitudes, and interactions of both service users and health care providers are central to social accountability processes in reproductive health. However, there is little consensus on how best to measure these latent changes. This paper reports on the adaptation and validation of measures that capture these changes in Tanzania and Ghana.

Methods: The CaPSAI theory of change determined the dimensions of the measure, and we adapted existing items for the survey items. Trained data collectors used a survey to collect data from 752 women in Tanzania and 750 women in Ghana attending contraceptive services. We used reliability analysis, exploratory, and confirmatory factor analysis to assess the validity and reliability of these measures in each country.

Results: The measure has high construct validity and reliability in both countries. We identified several subscales in both countries, 10 subscales in Tanzania, and 11 subscales in Ghana. Many of the domains and items were shared across both settings.

Conclusion: The study suggests that the multi-dimensional scales have high construct validity and reliability in both countries. Though there were differences in the two country contexts and in items and scales, there was convergence in the analysis that suggests that this measure may be relevant in different settings and should be validated in new settings.

Trial registration: ACTRN12619000378123 .