Development and validation of the Socioeconomic Status Composite Scale (SES-C)

BMC Public Health

Research

Hala Sacre¹  Rony M. Zeenny²  Aline Hajj³  Pascale Salameh⁴  Chadia Haddad⁵  Marwan Akel⁶ 

[1] Institut National de Santé Publique, d’Épidémiologie Clinique Et de Toxicologie-Liban (INSPECT-LB), Beirut, Lebanon;Institut National de Santé Publique, d’Épidémiologie Clinique Et de Toxicologie-Liban (INSPECT-LB), Beirut, Lebanon;Department of Pharmacy, American University of Beirut Medical Center, Beirut, Lebanon;Institut National de Santé Publique, d’Épidémiologie Clinique Et de Toxicologie-Liban (INSPECT-LB), Beirut, Lebanon;Laboratoire de Pharmacologie, Pharmacie Clinique Et Contrôle de Qualité Des Médicament (LPCQM), Faculty of Pharmacy, Saint Joseph University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon;Faculté de Pharmacie, Université Laval, Québec, Canada;Oncology Division, CHU de Québec Université Laval Research Center, Québec, Canada;Institut National de Santé Publique, d’Épidémiologie Clinique Et de Toxicologie-Liban (INSPECT-LB), Beirut, Lebanon;School of Medicine, Lebanese American University, Byblos, Lebanon;Faculty of Pharmacy, Lebanese University, Hadat, Lebanon;Department of Primary Care and Population Health, University of Nicosia Medical School, 2417, Nicosia, Cyprus;Institut National de Santé Publique, d’Épidémiologie Clinique Et de Toxicologie-Liban (INSPECT-LB), Beirut, Lebanon;School of Medicine, Lebanese American University, Byblos, Lebanon;Research Department, Psychiatric Hospital of the Cross, P.O. Box 60096, Jal Eddib, Lebanon;School of Health Sciences, Modern University for Business and Science, Beirut, Lebanon;Institut National de Santé Publique, d’Épidémiologie Clinique Et de Toxicologie-Liban (INSPECT-LB), Beirut, Lebanon;School of Pharmacy, Lebanese International University, Beirut, Lebanon;School of Education, Lebanese International University, Beirut, Lebanon;

关键词: Socioeconomic status;    Financial distress;    Validation;    Assessment;    Composite scale;    Developing country;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12889-023-16531-9

 received in 2023-02-21, accepted in 2023-08-16,  发布年份 2023

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundSocioeconomic status (SES) is a critical multifactorial determinant of health and plays a significant role in shaping an individual’s health outcomes. While a composite scale has been proposed to measure SES in children, to our knowledge, limited composite scales were developed for adults in different contexts, highlighting the need for a comprehensive and valid SES measure to elucidate the relationship between SES and health in this population.ObjectiveThis study aimed to develop and validate a composite scale that measures the socioeconomic status in Lebanon and assess its correlates in a socioeconomic crisis context.MethodsAn online study was carried out between October and November 2022 across all Lebanese regions. Snowball sampling was used to enroll 448 adults living in Lebanon through a questionnaire created on Google Forms and shared by WhatsApp to a first sample from all geographic areas.ResultsThe developed composite scale (SES-C) was found to be reliable and valid. It was based on several aspects of socioeconomic status, i.e., participant education level, family head education level, perceived social class, not being in debt, not receiving financial help, crowding index, participant work status, family head work status, monthly household income, and financial well-being. Furthermore, high SES was significantly associated with married status, older age, alcohol consumption, the absence of chronic disease, easy access to healthcare, private insurance coverage, and the number of rooms in the house in the bivariate analysis. In the multivariable analysis, high SES was significantly associated with age (ORa-1.13; p = 0.011) and easy access to healthcare (ORa = 7.81; p = 0.001) and inversely associated with chronic disease (ORa = 0.17; p = 0.002). Similar results with lower magnitude were found for moderate SES.ConclusionThe study successfully developed and validated a composite scale (SES-C) for measuring the socioeconomic status in Lebanon, taking into account the complexities of the Lebanese context. The scale was found to be reliable and valid, and its results showed significant correlations with various factors such as older age, lower risk of chronic disease, and easy access to healthcare.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© BioMed Central Ltd., part of Springer Nature 2023