Testing the reliability of the Health Literacy Questionnaire with carers of older adults receiving hospital care

Abstract

Objective: To determine the re-test reliability of the Health Literacy Questionnaire (HLQ) with carers of older adults discharged from hospital or attending the outpatient clinic. Methods: Carers completed the HLQ twice by telephone and rated the acceptability of completing the tool. Tool completion time was recorded. Correlations were calculated between the test occasions using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) and 95% confidence intervals.Results: Fifty-one carers of older patients participated. The HLQ showed good reliability (ICC = 0.75-0.90) for seven of the nine scales and moderate reliability (0.50-0.74) for the other two scales. Median completion time was 16.5 minutes (range 9-50), and acceptability was rated as 9.5/10. Conclusion:The HLQ is a reliable tool for use with carers of older adults attending hospital. However, the length of time for completion of the HLQ may limit its feasibility for use by hospital staff and carers, given the high stress and time pressures of acute care. K E Y W O R D Sacceptability, carers, health literacy, hospital discharge CONFLICTS OF INTERESTAssociate Professors Toye and Slatyer and Ms Mary Bronson all held paid positions at the hospital funding the project. All other authors had no conflicts of interest.

Test-retest reliability of the Health Literacy Questionnaire (HLQ-Br) in Brazilian carers of older people

“…All HLQ scales (Australian original version), confirmed by factor analysis, have good internal consistency reliability (Cronbach's alpha ranging from 0.80-0.89) 6 . A recent reliability study by our team investigating retest reliability of the HLQ among carers of older people being discharged from hospitals in Australia identified moderate to high levels of retest reliability 9 .…”

Measuring health literacy: A systematic review and bibliometric analysis of instruments from 1993 to 2021

“…German [251]; Dutch [252]; French [253]; Iranian [254]; Japanese [255]; Australian [256]; American [257,258]; Korean [259]; Swedish [260]; FCCHL-12 [261] Chew et al [46] Health Literacy Screening Questions English-Spanish [230]; American [262][263][264][265]; American-English and Spanish [266] Health Literacy Questionnaire (HLQ) Danish [272]; Slovak [273]; Norwegian [274]; Ghanaian [275]; German [276]; Australian [277][278][279][280]; Chinese [281,282]; Urdo [283]; Norwegian [284]; Yoruba [285]; Brazilian [286]; Brazilian Portuguese [287]; French [288,289]; American [290] -…”