Adaptation of the health literacy survey 19 -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 (HLS ₁₉ -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 (n _total  = 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) (n ₁  = 120) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) (n ₂  = 72). Internal consistency was evaluated using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Time invariance was evaluated by test-retest method (n _retest  = 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 HLS ₁₉ -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.
(© 2024 The Author(s). Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)