Introduction: College students’ healthy occupations need improvement, yet tools to measure their understanding, skills, attitudes, and self-efficacy for applying healthy occupations are lacking. We define this concept as “healthy occupation and lifestyle competence (HoLC),” encompassing “willingness for a healthy lifestyle” and “lifestyle adjustment skills.”
Objectives: This study examined the reliability and validity of the Healthy Occupation & Lifestyle Competence Scale (HoLCS).
Methods: A two-round Delphi method established content validity and face validity. Undergraduate students completed online questionnaires, including HoLCS, Occupational Balance Questionnaire 11–Chinese Version (OBQ11–C), and self-rated health. Item-total correlations and Cronbach’s α examined reliability. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and convergent validity examined construct validity.
Results: The initial 11-item HoLCS showed content validity (CVI = .988) and face validity (CVI = .934). 145 college students (mean age = 20.40 ± 1.76; 51.7% female) participated. HoLCS demonstrated high internal consistency (α = .921) and acceptable item-total correlations (r = .612 ~ .801). After CFA, we removed two items. The 9-item HoLCS demonstrated good model fit with two factors: “willingness for a healthy lifestyle” and “lifestyle adjustment skills” (χ2 / df = 1.61; CFI = .982, TLI = .971, SRMR = .036; RMSEA = .065, 90% CI = [ .018, .103]). HoLCS demonstrated convergent validity with OBQ11_C (r = .618) and self-rated health (r = .554).
Conclusion: The HoLCS is reliable and valid for measuring college students’ “healthy occupation and lifestyle competence.” Research limitations included non-random sampling. Future research can explore HoLCS’s predictive validity for health behaviors across diverse populations.