Validation of the Adapted eHEALS Questionnaire for Assessing Digital Health Literacy in Social Media: A Pilot Study

Area of Science:

• Digital Health
• Health Communication
• Information Science

Background:

• Social media is a primary source of health information, necessitating digital health literacy.
• The unregulated nature of social media facilitates health misinformation, requiring critical evaluation skills.
• Existing tools do not adequately measure social media-specific health literacy competencies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To adapt and validate the eHealth Literacy Scale (eHEALS) for assessing digital health literacy in social media contexts.
• To develop a reliable instrument for measuring competencies in navigating and evaluating health information on social media platforms.

Main Methods:

• Content validation by 33 experts using item-level (I-CVI) and scale-level (S-CVI) indices.
• Pilot study with 250 participants to assess reliability (Cronbach's alpha, McDonald's Omega) and feasibility.
• Exploratory factor analysis to confirm the instrument's structure.

Main Results:

• The adapted eHEALS achieved excellent content validity (S-CVI > 0.90) and high internal consistency (Cronbach's α = 0.92; McDonald's Ω = 0.92).
• The unidimensional structure explained over 60% of the variance, confirming the tool's robustness.
• The instrument effectively captures competencies for evaluating and applying social media health information.

Conclusions:

• A validated instrument is now available for assessing digital health literacy on social media.
• This tool supports the development of interventions to improve critical appraisal skills and reduce health misinformation.
• The validated scale offers a reliable method for population-based studies on social media health literacy.