Adaptation of the health literacy survey19‐Europe‐Q12 into Turkish culture: A psychometric study.

Rationale: Misinformation can lead to adverse outcomes on the health beliefs and behaviors of individuals. Therefore, health literacy skills are needed as a central competency to recognize the trustfulness of health‐related knowledge in any resources. To ensure this, a time‐efficient, skill‐oriented psychometric tools are needed to measure the comprehensive general health literacy level of communities. Aims and Objectives: This research was conducted to evaluate the psychometric properties of the 12‐item Health Literacy Survey‐Europe (HLS19‐Q12) regarding Turkish culture. Method: A methodological design was adopted. The population consisted of adult individuals registered to two family health centers in Ankara. The sample was determined based on 5–10 times the number of scale items rule (ntotal = 192). A questionnaire and Health Literacy Survey‐Europe‐Q12 were used to collect data. Language, content and construct validities and internal consistency reliability tests were performed through IBM‐SPSS 25.0 and AMOS 24.0 programs. The content validity was determined via the Davis technique. The construct validity was examined by exploratory (EFA) (n1 = 120) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) (n2 = 72). Internal consistency was evaluated using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Time invariance was evaluated by test‐retest method (nretest = 32) 4 weeks later. Results: The mean age was 30.17 ± 10.37 (min. 18‐max. 61). The Kaiser‐Meyer Olkin test result was 0.898, and the Bartlett's Test of Sphericity result was 604.889 (p < 0.001). The model‐fit indices showed good fit. The difference between the first and the second measurements was statistically insignificant (t = −1.659, p = 0.107). The Cronbach's alpha was 0.88. Conclusions: The HLS19‐Q12‐TR was a valid and reliable measurement tool in determining the health literacy level of the Turkish adult population. As one of the social determinants of health, easy measurement and generating a general health literacy map of the population is considered a necessity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]