The development and validation of Chinese Health Literacy Scale (CHLS) for older people

Objectives: We tried to develop a more concise health literacy scale for Chinese older adults.Methods: A draft scale based on the Health Literacy Questionnaire (HLQ) was developed, and revised by experts. We conducted a pilot study to test the readability and establish a standard inquiry method within 10 residents. We tested the validity and internal consistency using a field test with 3,739 participants.Results: Overall standardized Cronbach's a of Chinese Health Literacy Scale (CHLS) was 0.86 and that of each dimension ranged from 0.69 to 0.81. Nearly all dimensions had satisfactory factor loadings (0.33-0.98). The correlation coefficient between the score of each item and its dimension ranged from 0.59 to 0.92.Conclusions: The performance of CHLS was almost the same as the HLQ but more concise. It might play a role in reflecting the health literacy of older adults in China and further promoting their health.(c) 2022 Published by Elsevier Inc.