ADAPTATION OF THE HEALTH LITERACY HLS19 QUESTIONNAIRE FOR THE RUSSIAN POPULATION

Abstract

Health literacy is recognized as one of the most important determinants of health on the global level. International comparative population-based surveys on measuring health literacy using unified methodological approaches contribute to decisive national instruments on measurement, monitoring and improvement of health literacy in a population. These studies also contribute to the adaptation of the measures, taking into account the level of health literacy of vulnerable groups in particular. Until today, there was no instrument in the Russian Federation for measuring health literacy at the population level providing internationally comparable data. We attempted to adapt the HLS19 questionnaire developed within the international Health Literacy Survey in 2019 for use in Russia. The adaptation of the questionnaire was based on the European methodology which was tested in several countries of Europe and Asia and included 5 stages: translation from English into Russian, back translation from Russian into English, focus group, expert assessment and field testing. In spite of the fact that the instrument has already been translated into the Russian language and tested in some countries for the Russian-speaking population, a substantial adaptation of the questionnaire was needed taking into account the cultural and linguistic characteristics of the Russian population.