Background: This study aimed at developing the Scale for Evaluating Music for Health Promotion (SEMHP) to select appropriate music types for targeted audiences in Lao PDR. Method: The SEMHP was first developed with 20 items in the Lao language following a qualitative study. Then, 183 students rated the SEMHP on three types of song (a traditional folk song [lam], a hip-hop song [hip-hop], a pop song [strings]). The data were analyzed by the principal axis factoring method with promax rotation.

Results: The final SEMHP comprised 14 items with 4 factors: emotional involvement, message persuasion, cultural fitness and musicality (Cronbach's alphas: 0.83–0.92). The total scores of lam and strings were higher than hip-hop.

Conclusion: The findings provide a good estimate of the reliability and content validity of the SEMHP measuring the audiences' preference for each type of song. This indicates it would be useful for evaluating music for health promotion.

This study aimed at developing the Scale for Evaluating Music for Health Promotion (SEMHP) to select appropriate music types for targeted audiences in Lao PDR. Method: The SEMHP was first developed with 20 items in the Lao language following a qualitative study. Then, 183 students rated the SEMHP on three types of song (a traditional folk song [lam], a hip-hop song [hip-hop], a pop song [strings]). The data were analyzed by the principal axis factoring method with promax rotation.