Mexican study develops organ donation scale for university students

Researchers developed the ODS-US through a literature search, two rounds of expert Delphi review and pilot testing, then evaluated it in 413 undergraduate students at six higher education institutions in Guerrero, Mexico. The methodological study assessed content validity, factor structure, reliability, and convergent and discriminant validity.

Overall content validity was strong (Aiken’s V=0.891). Exploratory factor analysis supported six factors explaining 60.3% of variance. In confirmatory analysis, CFI was 0.973 and TLI 0.969, meeting the study’s criteria for acceptable fit; however, RMSEA was 0.130 and SRMR 0.103, both above the predefined threshold of 0.08. The 29-item Likert component had Cronbach’s α of 0.892 and McDonald’s ω of 0.939; the knowledge subscale had KR-20 of 0.725.

The authors report evidence of reliability and several forms of validity, but the mixed model-fit results leave the proposed structure uncertain. The instrument may support research and evaluation of health-promotion interventions among university students, but its findings should be interpreted cautiously pending validation in independent samples. The study was funded by Mexico’s SECIHTI; the authors declared no competing interests.