Introduction:

Healthy lifestyles are a priority for the prevention of chronic diseases; however, there is a lack of toolsvalidated for their measurement.

Objective:

To analyze the psychometric properties in young Mexican university students based on the translation of the Healthy Lifestyle Scale for University Students.

Methods:

Instrumental study with the participation of 530 female students from two Mexican public universities. In the initial phase, we performed the scale translation, expert review, piloting and back-translation. After a failed confirmatory factor analysis, an exploratory factor analysis was carried out using the robust unweighted least squares method with Promin oblique rotation, two criteria were considered in item retention: items with factor load greater than 0.32 and factor simplicity rates per item, keeping those that showed moderate magnitude (≥0.75).

Results:

Three exploratory factor analyzes were carried out, 24 items were discarded in the first two: four due to low factor loads and 20 due to high factor complexity (factor simplicity indexes lower than 0.75). In the third exploratory factor analysis with the remaining 14 items, four factors were found that explain 64.44% of the variance of the so-called scores: substance use, life appreciation, interpersonal relationships, and eating patterns, study and rest, showing, in addition, an appropriate adjustment. Reliability coefficients of adequate magnitude were estimated.

Conclusions:

The adaptation of the Healthy Lifestyle Scale for University Students yields a brief scale of 14 items that assess four dimensions of theoretically coherent lifestyles and linked to the occurrence of chronic noncommunicable diseases.

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