Introduction:

College students have been forced to change their habits due to quarantine in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Objective:

Develop a validation scale to recognize the changes in the lifestyle of the college students from Lima, Peru during the quarantine.

Methods:

Cross-sectional, observational and analytical study. 549 college students (human medicine and psychology faculties) from two private universities were virtually surveyed. Construct validity, reliability, and ranges / categories were performed to rate lifestyle.

Results:

The final scale consists of 25 items. Bartlett's sphericity test was significant (3514.19, df = 300, p <0.001) and the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin sample size adequacy indicator was adequate (0.845). The four thematic areas were changes with respect to: 1) Eating habits; 2) Harmful habits; 3) Physical activity; and 4) Use of communication media. As it was a Likert-type ordinal measurement scale, the results were confirmed through the Factor Analysys program, obtaining a KMO of 0.80 (reliable) and the significant Bartlett sphericity test (5528.8; p <0.001; gl = 300). confirming the existence of 7 components that explain 63% of the variance.

Conclusion:

This scale gathers the psychometric properties to be considered a useful, valid and reliable instrument to measure these changes in students of health science careers, being necessary to prospectively validate it in other careers and countries.

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