Development of a Health Literacy Scale for Persons with Hypertension

Abstract

This research and development aimed to 1) develop a health literacy scale for persons with hypertension, and 2) examine the quality of the health literacy scale with construct validity by using confirmatory factor analysis and by means of hypothesis testing. The participants were 400 persons with hypertension selected by multi-stage random sampling. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Chi-square, and confirmatory factor analysis. Results showed that the health literacy scale for persons with hypertension comprised six components: 1) access to health information and health services, 2) communication about health, 3) appraisal and decision- making for practice, 4) self-management, 5) media and information literacy, and 6) knowledge and understanding of the hypertension disease. The content validity of the health literacy scale was between 0.80 – 1.00. The validity of the first five components was between 0.85 - 0.92 while the sixth component, knowledge and understanding of the hypertension disease scale had a reliability value of 0.78, discrimination between 0.44 – 0.92, and difficulty between 0.24 – 0.72. The results of the construct validity test using confirmatory component analysis showed that the scale was consistent with the empirical data with a Chi-square value of 324.23, df = 175, p-value < .001, and Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = 0.05. Examination by hypothesis testing method showed that the overall score was at a good level except for the component in access to health information and health services which was at a poor level of 32.75 percent. This scale should be used to further assess the health literacy of persons with hypertension.