Validation of Heart Failure-Specific Health Literacy Scale

Valid and reliable tools are needed to assess the health literacy of heart failure. This study was performed to validate the Persian version of Heart Failure-Specific Health Literacy Scale (HF-Specific HL Scale).

In this methodological study, 360 patients with heart failure completed the Persian version of HF-Specific HL Scale in two medical centers affiliated with Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences. Factor structure was evaluated using structural validity, convergent and divergent validity. The scale reliability was evaluated by internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) and construct reliability.

The results of exploratory factor analysis showed that the scale has two factors: difficulties in understanding prescriptions and hospital pamphlets and understanding the disease and trying to improve knowledge about it, which account for 42.20% of the variance. Cronbach's alpha of the scale was higher than 0.7 and factor loading of the items was more than 0.5 indicating significant correlation coefficient of the items. The fit indices of the model showed that the extracted factor structure was suitable.

Factor structure of the HF-Specific HL Scale in patients with heart failure showed a two-factor structure. In addition, considering the acceptable validation results of the scale, the Persian version can be used as a reliable tool for measuring health literacy in patients with heart failure.