Development of a short-form Chinese health literacy scale for low salt consumption (CHLSalt-22) and its validation among hypertensive patients

Abstract

Background With the accelerated pace of people’s life and the changing dietary patterns, the number of chronic diseases is increasing and occurring at a younger age in today’s society. The speedily rising hypertensive patients have become one of the main risk factors for chronic diseases. People should focus on health literacy related to salt consumption and reach a better quality of life. Currently, there is a lack of local assessment tools for low salt consumption in mainland China. Objective To develop a short-form version of the Chinese Health Literacy Scale For Low Salt Consumption instrument for use in mainland China. Methods A cross-sectional design was conducted on a sample of 1472 people in Liaoxi, China. Participants completed a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Chinese version of the CHLSalt-22, the measuring change in restriction of salt (sodium) in the diet in hypertensives (MCRSDH-SUST), the Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire (BIPQ), and the Benefit-Finding Scales (BFS) to test the hypothesis. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analyses were performed to examine the underlying factor structure of the CHLSalt-22. One month later, 37 patients who participated in the first test were recruited to evaluate the test-retest reliability. Results The CHLSalt-22 demonstrated adequate internal consistency, good test-retest reliability, satisfactory construct validity, convergent validity and discriminant validity. The CHLSalt-22 count scores were correlated with age, sex, body mass index (BMI), education level, income, occupation, the Measuring Change in Restriction of Salt (sodium) in Diet in Hypertensives (MCRSDH-SUST), the Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire (BIPQ), and the Benefit-Finding Scales (BFS). Conclusion The results indicate that the Chinese Health Literacy Scale For Low Salt Consumption (CHLSalt-22) version has good reliability and validity and can be considered a tool to assess health literacy related to salt consumption in health screenings.

The Effectiveness of Hands-Only Offline Application

“…Health applications are essential in current care as cardiopulmonary diseases increase (MacKinnon & Brittain, 2020). Health applications are usually widely used to determine fitness, manage nutrition and weight (Elavsky et al, 2017), and assess salt consumption (Zhang et al, 2022). This application has a worldwide impact on heart and blood vessel health (Fu et al, 2021).…”

Psychometric testing of the Determinants of Salt-Restriction Behaviour Questionnaire in people of Chinese ancestry: a methodological study

“…This is because most participants could not correctly answer the essential knowledge items, and some of the responses were ‘I don’t know’. According to a previous psychometric testing study [ 36 ], people from different areas may have different levels of salt-related knowledge. Our participants were from very diverse backgrounds, which also reflected on the composition of the Chinese Australian population group.…”