Establishment of health literacy evaluation index system for Alzheimer′s disease

Abstract

Objective To establish an objective health literacy evaluation index system of dementia care for scientific assessment. Methods Literature reviews, in-depth interviews, participatory rapid appraisal, and focus group discussion were adopted to developed a scale and checked its items. Then the scale was utilized to investigate 280 residents, and its reliability and validity were examined. Results The health literacy evaluation index system of dementia care included 56 items which belong to four dimensions of knowledge, attitude, behavior and skills. The total Cronbach α was 0.818, split-half reliability was 0.881, the correlation between the total score and each dimension were significant (r=0.417-0.747). KMO statistic in factor analysis was 0.739 and 8 factors predicted 46.305% of total variance. What′s more, the correlation between each items score and dimension were significant (r=0.221-0.717). Conclusions The health literacy scale presents acceptable reliability and validity in the surveyed sample, which can be used as a valid measure of health literacy in community health service centers and as the basis of health education. Key words: Alzheimer′s; Care; Health literacy; Index system construction