Measuring functional, communicative, and critical health literacy among diabetic patients

OBJECTIVE - Health literacy (HL), the capacity of individuals to access, understand, and use health information to make informed and appropriate health-related decisions, has been recognized as an important concept in patient education and disease management. This study examined the psychometric properties of newly developed scales for measuring three different levels of HL (i.e., functional, communicative, and critical) in patients with diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS - The reliability and validity of the three HL scales were evaluated in a sample of 138 outpatients with type 2 diabetes. In addition, socio-demographic and clinical characteristics, knowledge of diabetes, information-seeking behaviors, and self-efficacy were assessed for each patient through a self-report questionnaire and review of electronic medical records. RESULTS - Scale items were constructed to directly reflect the definition of HL. Internal consistency of functional, communicative, and critical HL scales was adequately high (alpha = 0.84, alpha = 0.77, and alpha = 0.65, respectively). Three interpretable factors were identified in exploratory factor analysis. Correlations between HL scales and other measures supported the construct validity of the scales. The three HL scales were only moderately correlated with each other, suggesting that each represents a different domain of HL abilities and skills. CONCLUSIONS - Our newly developed HL scales are reliable and valid measures of three types of HL in diabetic patients. Exploring a patient's HL levels may provide a better understanding of the patient's potential barriers to self-management of disease and health-promoting behaviors.