We present the validation study of the Health Locus of control Scale (HLCS) for adolescents, an original tool designed to detect adolescents’ orientations of Locus of control referring to health. 1469 participants were involved in the study, almost equally distributed by gender (44.0% males and 56.0% females) with a mean age of 16.6 years (SD = 1.43). Exploratory and Confirmatory factor analyses showed a three-dimensional structure of HLCS, that in the final version consists of 15 items and has satisfactory psychometric properties both in the overall sample and in sub-samples. In addition, correlational analyses have demonstrated the convergent and discriminant validity. The results show the usefulness of the scale for the collection of adolescents’ beliefs about the control of their physical health also in samples differentiated by gender, age and education.
Keywords: Health Locus of control, validation of measurement scales, adolescents