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The Cancer Message Literacy Tests: psychometric analyses and validity studies
Kathleen M Mazor1, H Jane Rogers, Andrew E Williams
1Meyers Primary Care Institute, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Reliant Medical Group, Fallon Community Health Plan, Worcester, USA. Kathy.Mazor@meyersprimary.org
Patient Education and Counseling
|July 14, 2012
Summary
Two new health literacy tests, Cancer Message Literacy Test-Listening and Cancer Message Literacy Test-Reading, show promising psychometric properties and valid scores for assessing comprehension of health messages.
Area of Science:
- Health literacy research
- Psychometric evaluation
- Health communication
Background:
- Health literacy is crucial for understanding health information.
- Existing measures may not fully capture all aspects of health literacy.
- New tools are needed to assess comprehension of both spoken and written health messages.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the psychometric properties of the Cancer Message Literacy Test-Listening (CMLT-Listening) and Cancer Message Literacy Test-Reading (CMLT-Reading).
- To assess the validity of scores from these new health literacy tests.
- To compare performance on new tests with established measures and demographic factors.
Main Methods:
- Adults aged 40-71 completed CMLT-Listening, CMLT-Reading, REALM, Lipkus numeracy test, a custom knowledge test, and cognitive tests.
- Participants provided self-reported data on education, health status, reading ability, listening comprehension, and home language.
- Reliability and validity were assessed through internal consistency, correlations with other measures, and group comparisons.
Main Results:
- Both CMLT tests demonstrated good to adequate reliability (alpha=.84 for Listening, alpha=.75 for Reading).
- Scores on CMLT tests significantly correlated with established measures (REALM, numeracy, cancer knowledge) and cognitive abilities.
- Test scores varied as expected based on educational attainment, language, self-rated health, and self-reported comprehension abilities.
Conclusions:
- The Cancer Message Literacy Tests (CMLT) exhibit promising psychometric properties.
- Scores from CMLT-Listening and CMLT-Reading are valid indicators of understanding spoken and written cancer-related health information.
- These tests will advance research on listening and reading comprehension's role in health decisions and behaviors.
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