Validity and reliability of the european health literacy survey questionnaire (HLS_EU_Q16) in the greek language

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Having comprehensive and validated tools to effectively measure levels of Health Literacy (HL) in the general population is of great importance, since HL levels appear to be a crucial determinant of the population’s overall health. OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to validate the Greek version of the HLS_EU_Q16 questionnaire. METHODS: A total of 496 participants (81.8% women) participated in a self-administrated online, cross-sectional survey. The participants had to concurrently complete the Greek Version of HLS_EU_Q16 and the New Vital Sign (NVS). Certain socioeconomic and anthropometric characteristics were also assessed. For test-retest reliability, 149 of the participants completed the questionnaire twice within a 15-day period. Principal Component Analysis, Cronbach’s a Spearman’s rho were used. RESULTS: All 3 factors assessed by the tool: “Health Care”, “Disease Prevention” and “Health Promotion”, had eigenvalues greater than 1. The Cronbach’s a was 0.884, for the total score of the HLS_EU_Q16 and 0.790, 0.710 and 0.800, for the above 3 subscales, respectively. Finally, test–retest reliability, after 15 days for the HLS_EU_Q16, resulted in Spearman’s correlation coefficient of r = 0.628 (p < 0.0001) which show a high correlation. CONCLUSIONS: Results indicate that the HLS_EU_Q16 is a reliable and valid tool for assessing HL in the Greek population.