Pharmacotherapy literacy questionnaire for parents of pre-school children in Serbia: Construction and psychometric characteristics

Abstract

Background/Aim. Valid and reliable instruments were emphasized in the studies of pharmacotherapy literacy which is the capacity to obtain, evaluate, calculate, and comprehend basic information about pharmacotherapy and actions necessary to make appropriate medication-related decisions. The aims of this study were: to develop an instrument for assessment of pharmacotherapy health literacy among parents of preschool children in Serbia (PTHL-SR) and to evaluate psychometric properties. Methods. This study was a four-stage methodological one, conducted from November 2015 to October 2016. The instrument content was established through qualitative and quantitative expert reviews in the first and second phase. Experts had to answer about the clarity and relevance of questions. The Content Validity Ratio (CVR) and index (CVI) were calculated based on the necessity and relevance of questions. Third phase was pre-testing of initial instrument to assess comprehensibility of questions. In the fourth phase, 300 parents completed questionnaire at several kindergartens in Belgrade, to determine questionnaire's reliability through internal consistency, using the Cronbach's alpha coefficient and correlation between classes. Results. The 14-items questionnaire was developed (initial PTHL-SR) and pre-tested on a pilot sample. It had 4 groups of questions about knowledge, understanding, numerical skills and access to medicines-related information. The Content Validity Ratio (CVR = 0.875) was significant and adequate (Lawshe CVR8 = 0.780). Conclusion. PTHL-SR is a reliable instrument for assessment of pharmacotherapy literacy among parents of preschool children in Serbia and can be used for the evaluation of understanding, calculating and accessing medicines-related information.

Understanding of Information about Medicines Use among Parents of Pre-School Children in Serbia: Parental Pharmacotherapy Literacy Questionnaire (PTHL-SR)

“…Parents had to complete: (a) the previously validated instrument for health literacy (Short Test of Functional Health literacy in adults, S-TOFHLA [ 21 , 22 , 27 ] (Serbian version), (b) the Pharmacotherapy literacy questionnaire in Serbian (PTHL-SR questionnaire) [ 24 ], and (c) a socio-demographic questionnaire which included questions about age, sex, education, employment status, self-estimation of health condition, the number of annual visits to pediatrician, presence of chronic diseases of child, breast feeding information and whether parents were smokers or not. Participants in the survey did not receive any monetary compensation.…”

“…The PTHL-SR questionnaire included 14 questions and was developed and validated in our previous study [ 24 ]. Some of the questions included graphic presentations of a measuring device for dosage of liquid pediatric medicines and graphical presentation of packaging for medicines.…”

“…Our aim was to investigate knowledge and understanding of information together with numerical skills about medicines among parents of pre-school children with a newly constructed and validated Parental pharmacotherapy literacy questionnaire written in the Serbian language (PTHL-SR) [ 24 ].…”

The Development and Psychometric Assessment of Chinese Medication Literacy Scale for Hypertensive Patients (C-MLSHP)

“…Furthermore, patients' skills, e.g., how to interpret medication labels such as dosing and measurements was also emphasized in the development of medication literacy measure (Sauceda et al, 2012). In addition, King, Ubavić et al and Krajnović et al referred to four domains of pharmacotherapy literacy: knowledge, understanding for health information (written and spoken), numeracy, and access to medicinerelated information (King et al 2011;Ubavićet al, 2018a;Ubavićet al, 2018b;Krajnovic, 2019). The understanding for written or spoken information and numeracy were also emphasized in the concept of pharmacotherapy literacy.…”

Practical application of health literacy tests at the primary level of health care

“…U dostupnoj literaturi u najvećoj meri opisuju se instrumenti zdravstvene pismenosti, kojima se procenjuje opšta zdravstvena pismenost nezavisno od starosti pacijenta ili vrste oboljenja [30]. Validni i pouzdani instrumenti su neophodni i u studijama farmakoterapijske pismenosti koja predstavlja "sposobnost dobijanja, procene, izračunavanja i razumevanja osnovnih informacija o farmakoterapiji i radnjama potrebnim za donošenje adekvatnih odluka koje se odnose na primenu lekova" [31]. Većina instrumenata za procenu nivoa zdravstvene pismenosti uglavnom je primenjiva u ustanovama primarne zdravstvene zaštite i ima karakter procene funkcionalnog nivoa zdravstvene pismenosti [32].…”