TYPE Original Research PUBLISHED 09 February 2023 DOI 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1102343 OPEN ACCESS EDITED BY Ingrida Uloziene, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Lithuania REVIEWED BY Rima Kregzdyte, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Lithuania Siti Munira Yasin, MARA University of Technology, Malaysia *CORRESPONDENCE Bente Elisabeth Moen bente.moen@uib.no SPECIALTY SECTION This article was submitted to Occupational Health and Safety, a section of the journal Frontiers in Public Health RECEIVED 28 November 2022 ACCEPTED 23 January 2023 PUBLISHED 09 February 2023 CITATION Nyarubeli IP, Tungu AM, Pallesen S, Moen BE and Mamuya SHD (2023) Development and initial validation of questionnaire on predictors for the use of hearing protection devices among noise exposed manufacturing workers in Tanzania: A methodological study. Front. Public Health 11:1102343. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1102343 COPYRIGHT © 2023 Nyarubeli, Tungu, Pallesen, Moen and Mamuya. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Development and initial validation of questionnaire on predictors for the use of hearing protection devices among noise exposed manufacturing workers in Tanzania: A methodological study Israel Paul Nyarubeli 1,2 , Alexander Mtemi Tungu 2,3 , Ståle Pallesen 4 , Bente Elisabeth Moen 5 * and Simon Henry David Mamuya 1 1 Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 2 Research Group for Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Department of Global Public and Primary Care, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway, 3 Department of Physiology, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 4 Department of Psychosocial Science, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway, 5 Centre for International Health, Department of Global Public and Primary Care, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway Introduction: The use of hearing protection devices (HPDs) has been an intervention of choice in many workplaces such as in the construction industry for quite some time due to impractical effects of engineering and administrative interventions. Questionnaires for assessment for HPDs use among construction workers have been developed and validated in developed countries. However, there is limited knowledge of the same, among manufacturing workers in developing countries that are assumed to have a different culture, work organizations and production processes. Methods: We conducted a stepwise methodological study to develop a questionnaire to predict the use of HPDs among noise exposed workers in manufacturing factories in Tanzania. The questionnaire included 24 items and was developed through rigorous and systematic procedures involving three steps; (i) item formulation that involved two experts, (ii) expert content review and item rating that involving eight experts with vast experience in the field, and (iii) a field pre-test that involved 30 randomly selected workers from a factory with similar characteristics as a planned study site. A modified Pender’s Health Promotion Model was adopted in the questionnaire development. We analyzed the questionnaire in terms of content validity and item reliability. Results: The 24 items were categorized into seven domains i.e., perceived self- efficacy, perceived susceptibility, perceived benefits, perceived barriers, interpersonal influences, situational influences and safety climate. The score for content validity for each item was satisfactory as the content validity index ranged between 0.75 to 1.00 for clarity, relevance, and essentiality criteria. Similarly, the scores for the content validity ratio (for all items) were 0.93, 0.88 and 0.93 for clarity, relevance, and essentiality, respectively. In addition, the overall value for Cronbach’s alpha was 0.92 with domain coefficients: perceived self-efficacy 0.75; perceived susceptibility 0.74; perceived benefits 0.86; perceived barriers 0.82; interpersonal influences 0.79; situational influences; 0.70; and safety climate 0.79. The mean inter-item correlation was 0.49 suggesting good internal consistency. Discussion and conclusion: The developed and preliminary validated questionnaire can be used to predict the HPDs use among noise exposed manufacturing factory workers. Future surveys using this questionnaires warranted for further validation of the scale developed. KEYWORDS hearing protection device, noise, manufacturing, workers, questionnaire, validity, reliability Frontiers in Public Health 01 frontiersin.org