Factorial Structure of the Transactional eHealth Literacy Among Vietnamese Youth: An Instrument Validation Study

Abstract

The progression into the Digital Age has brought an array of novel skill requirements. Unlike traditional literacy, there are currently few measures that can reliably measure eHealth literacy. The Transactional Model of eHealth Literacy and subsequent Transactional eHealth Literacy Instrument may provide a feasible option for measuring eHealth literacy. However, this instrument has yet to be validated, which is the aim of this study. We conducted an online cross-sectional study among 236 Vietnamese young people. Using exploratory factor analysis, we ensured that a model consisting of four factors had the best fit (RMSEA = 0.116; CFI = 0.907) and the highest internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = 0.96). A confirmatory factor analysis tested measurement invariance at four levels: configural, metric, scalar, and strict invariance. Only metric invariance was partially invariant, while the rest tested fully invariant. Even with partial metric invariance, there is reason to assume that functional, communicative, critical, and translational eHealth literacy (the four levels according to the transactional model) are consistently measured when deploying the Transactional eHealth Literacy Instrument across groups. In other words, this study suggests the instrument can be used for comparisons across groups and has the potential to generate high-quality data usable for informing change agents as to whether a particular population is proficient enough to adopt novel eHealth innovations.