Development and validation of a multidimensional health literacy questionnaire for multiple sclerosis patients

Assessment of health literacy among patients with multiple sclerosis can be used in education planning, disease management, compliance, and quality of life. In addition, health literacy can be assessed using a standard questionnaire based on the social and cultural context more accurately. This study aimed to develop and validate a questionnaire for the assessment of health literacy in patients with multiple sclerosis.

This is an exploratory sequential mixed method research which was conducted in three sections. In the first section, the concept of health literacy among patients with MS was analyzed using the hybrid concept analysis in the theoretical work, field work, and final analysis stages in order to extract features of the concept. In the second section, an initial pool of items of the questionnaire was designed based on the extracted features from the concept, reviewed texts, and related questionnaires. In the third section, psychometric properties of the questionnaire were evaluated including validity (face, content and construct) and reliability (internal consistency and stability).

Totally, 68 items were included in the initial pool, which shrank to 22 items in the final questionnaire after reviewing the psychometric features. Factor analyses led to the extraction of four factors including appraisal of health information, ability to search health information, knowledge of caring for the disease, and successful practices in health conditions. Internal consistency of the questionnaire was also confirmed by Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.94, and its stability was calculated and confirmed by the inter-class coefficient of correlation of 0.96.

The developed 22-item-questionnaire is valid and reliable for assessment of levels of health literacy in Iranian patients with MS.