Diagnosis of Response Behavioural Patterns towards the Risk of Pandemic Flu Influenza A (H1N1) of Urban Community Based on Rasch Measurement Model Izni Syamsina Saari, Zamalia Mahmud Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences Universiti Teknologi MARA 40450 Shah Alam, Malaysia. izni_syamsina@melaka.uitm.edu.my, zamalia@tmsk.uitm.edu.my Nik Nairan Abdullah Department of Population Health and Preventive Medicine (PHPM) Faculty of Medicine Universiti Teknologi MARA, 40450 Shah Alam Selangor, Malaysia Abstract— The development of Rasch measurement model has rapidly expanded from social science, educational fields, engineering and recently in the area of health science research. This revisited study has made an attempt to apply the Rasch measurement model in the field of health sciences to investigate the response behavioural patterns of local urban community regarding the risk of Pandemic Flu, Influenza A (H1N1). These variables include subjects’ response behaviour towards HINI treatment effectiveness, knowledge, perceived risk, attitude and preventive practices towards HINI. This study aims to validate the items in the instrument, and then investigate the response patterns using the Rasch measurement tools. The study had used secondary survey data provided by the Department of Population Health and Preventive Medicine (PHPM), Faculty of Medicine, UiTM Shah Alam which were collected from communities residing at two different locations in Selangor, Malaysia. A Rasch probabilistic measurement model is used to examine whether respondents were providing appropriate responses towards the instrument items in the H1N1 study. Results of the analysis show that respondents with different characteristics or background have provided true response which resulted in the communities displaying moderate degree of knowledge and awareness towards the risk of H1N1. Keywords: Risk of Influenza A (H1N1), Knowledge, Awareness, Response behaviour, Rasch measurement model I. INTRODUCTION A new influenza virus is usually referred to as ‘‘swine flu’’, or commonly known as pandemic influenza A (H1N1) [1] is the most recent pandemic disease that has affected the world’s population [2]. According to World Health Organization (WHO), it started infecting humans in Mexico and spread rapidly into several countries throughout the world. Malaysia is no exception where the first pandemic wave occurred between April and September, 2009. During that time, there was a wide coverage in the mass media on the government efforts and practices on how to control the transmission of pandemic influenza A (H1N1) [1]. The pandemic flu is of great concern to the world community particularly in Malaysia because the public may not be very receptive towards the extent of danger of this disease. Due to the possibility of pandemic influenza A H1N1, majority of the population had taken no action to change their lifestyle [3]. During an infectious Influenza A (H1N1) virus outbreak, personal preventive behaviors are very crucial and any individual should take responsibility for helping control emerging infectious diseases since the disease could spread widely in the community [4]. Effort has been made by several parties including a recent study by [5] which looked at the public’s knowledge and attitude towards A H1N1. However, the extent of public truthful perception towards the Pandemic Flu is yet to be investigated. Hence, this would be the focus of the present study in which public responses towards the items of measurement shall be investigated for its validity and reliability using the Rasch measurement tools. II. LITERATURE REVIEW A. Rasch Measurement Model Rasch model is not only used in the social sciences area of research [6] but it also expanded to other areas such as health science [7] and engineering fields [8]. Rasch models are appropriate for assessing and measuring psychological variables such as abilities, attitudes, and personality traits where the purpose is to obtain a precise and objective measurement. Rasch model would be a good tool for calibration of items that provides a criterion for successful measurement [9]. A Rasch measurement model is an additive, conjoint, fundamental measurement by which one can create linear, objective measures applicable to the human sciences, education, psychology, medicine and health, marketing and business and judging in sports. A major advantage of Rasch analysis is that it places the items and the persons along a single-logit scale ruler [10]. The heart of the Rasch measurement model illustrates the Person-Item Distribution Map (PIDM) [11]. Other displays include item characteristic curve and scalogram. Basically, Rasch analysis is used so that the data are fitted to the model, rather than fitting the model to the data [12]. If the data does not fit the model well, this © IEEE 2012. This article is free to access and download, along with rights for full text and data mining, re-use and analysis.