Background
Few instruments exist to capture interdisciplinary healthcare professionals' (HCPs) health literacy (HL) sensitivity, such as knowledge, skills, and attentive attitudes, to pursue HL when communicating with patients and their caregivers effectively.
Objective
This study aims to report on the psychometric properties of The Instrument of Health Literacy Competencies (IOHLC) using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) procedures on data from a sample of HCPs working in specialist healthcare services in Norway.
Methods
The nine scales of the original Chinese IOHLC were translated and adapted from English into Norwegian using a forward-backward translation procedure and cognitive interviews. For the psychometric evaluation, a cross-sectional survey of 288 HCPs was conducted in a medium-sized hospital in Norway from July 2022 to September 2022. The statistical analysis included correlation analysis (Persons R), internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha), and CFA.
Results
The cognitive interviews led to changes in wording and the inclusion of an additional item in the survey. Nine one-factor models resulted in an acceptable fit (i.e., >0.6), comprising 36of the 40 items in the original version. Four items were excluded due to a low loading. In the final version, comprising 36 items, the alpha for internal consistency was 0.7 and above.
Conclusions
The CFA analysis yielded 36 items from [...]