HUNGARIAN TRANSLATION AND PSYCHOMETRIC PROPERTIES OF A SUBJECTIVE HEALTH LITERACY QUESTIONNAIRE ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION – The concept of health literacy occurs more and more often not only among researchers but also in our everyday life. A good health literacy level is essential to make relevant decisions about our health and the health care system. The aim of our research is to validate the possible implementation of Hungarian version of the German HLS-CovidQ22 questionnaire, which explores the level of health literacy about the coronavirus in the general population. METHODS – After the linguistic validation of the translated questionnaire a sample of 120 university students responded the items. Afterward, we performed the exploratory factor analysis and computed psychometric variables. RESULTS – The Cronbach-α value was 0.938 for the entire questionnaire, while the sub-indexes were as follows accessing α = 0.786, understanding α = 0.899, appraising α = 0.865 and applying α = 0.846. The Spearman–Brown coefficient of the questionnaire was 0.866, and the Guttman "split-half” coefficient was 0.861. The result of the Bartlett test proved to be significant (p < 0.001), the value of the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin criterion was 0.876. The 4 factors created cover 67.08% of the original 22 variables. CONCLUSION – Based on the statistical analyses, the Hungarian version of the HLS-Covid-Q22 questionnaire can reliably be used for measuring the subjective perception of health literacy about the coronavirus. The coronavirus remained a part of our everyday life thus, it is essential to develop appropriate defense strategies. In order to do it, we need to learn the level of health literacy among the general population. The HLS-Covid-Q22 questionnaire is one of the suitable means to achieve this specific knowledge. © 2022 Literatura Medica Publishing House. All rights reserved.