WHO Action Network on Measuring Health Literacy: the Italian pilot for the Survey 2019 Title

Abstract

Abstract Background Health Literacy-HL is an important determinant to improve and maintain health and quality of life during life course. HL implies people’s knowledge, motivation, competencies to access, understand, appraise, apply information to make judgements and decisions in everyday life concerning healthcare, disease prevention, health promotion. Thanks to Ministry of Health funds, Italy joined the WHO Action Network on Measuring Population and Organizational Health Literacy-M-POHL for collecting comparable data on HL in order to measure and promote citizens’ HL among MS. Objective: The HLS-EU-Q16 questionnaire was administered to a sample of adult population during the Health Examination Survey-HES of the CUORE Project started in 2018, to verify and evaluate the feasibility of the HL survey. Methods One hundred people aged 35-74 years, resident in Reggio Calabria (South of Italy), were interviewed (face-to-face) following consecutive access to the HES. According to the HLS-EU-Q16 sum score, three levels of HL were defined: inadequate, problematic, and sufficient. HL mean score and standard deviation-SD were elaborated together with prevalence of the three HL levels. Socio-demographics conditions, lifestyles, risk factors were measured during the HES. Results HL mean score of 98 completed questionnaires (47 men, 51 women) was 13.0 (SD = 3.5), with no sex difference; prevalence of persons with inadequate HL was 11.2%, problematic 26.5%, sufficient 62.3%. Sufficient HL level presents the highest prevalence (72%) of high educational level. Smoking habit decreases as HL level increases. Conclusions The HLS-EU-Q16 questionnaire represents a standardised tool applicable in the general population. Preliminary results from the Italian pilot of the HLS-EU-Q16 suggest that the survey is feasible within the HES of the CUORE Project, with the opportunity to link HL data with HES measured data. More than one third of interviewed adult population have inadequate/problematic HL.