Amigos de Fibro (Fibro Friends): Validation of an Educational Program to Promote Health in Fibromyalgia

Abstract

Health education is one of the main items to enable the promotion of health for individuals with fibromyalgia (FM) in Primary Health Care (PHC) in Brazil. The purpose of this study was to validate a multidisciplinary educational health promotion program called Amigos de Fibro (Fibro Friends) for individuals with FM. Methodological research involving 23 health professionals (expert judges) and 45 individuals with FM (target audience) used an instrument to assess the objectives, proposed themes and initiatives, relevance, writing style, and structure of the program through the Delphi technique. The content validity index (CVI) ≥ 0.78 and coefficient kappa ≥ 0.61 were used for data analysis. All 25 items evaluated in both groups presented considerable minimum CVI by CVI and the kappa coefficient. In the global evaluation of Amigos de Fibro, the CVI of the specialist judges was 0.90, while the values of the target audience judges were 0.95. The kappa coefficient of the expert judges was 0.90 and that of the target audience judges was 0.85. Amigos de Fibro, a light technology in health, was considered with adequate content validity and internal consistency and is, therefore, valid in the use by health professionals with the target audience in PHC, making it possible for them to act as health-promoting agents.

Keywords: educational technology; fibromyalgia; health education; health promotion; rheumatology.

Figure 1

Flowchart of the “Amigos de Fibro” validation process.