Validity and reliability of the european health literacy survey questionnaire (HLS_EU_Q16) in the greek language

BACKGROUND: Having comprehensive and validated tools to effectively measure levels of Health Literacy (HL) in the general population is of great importance, since HL levels appear to be an crucial determinant of the population’s overall health. OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to validate the Greek version of the HLS_EU_Q16 questionnaire. METHODS: A total of 496 participants (81.8% women) participated in a self-administrated online, cross-sectional survey. The participants had to concurrently complete the Greek Version of HLS_EU_Q16 and the New Vital Sign (NVS). Certain socioeconomic and anthropometric characteristics also assessed. For test-retest reliability, 149 of the participants completed the questionnaire twice within a 15-day period. Principal Component Analysis, Cronbach’s a Spearman’s rho were used. RESULTS: All 3 factors assessed by the tool: “Health Care”, “Disease Prevention” and “Health Promotion”, had eigenvalues greater than 1. The Cronbach’s a was 0.884, for the total score of the HLS_EU_Q16 and 0.790, 0.710 and 0.800, for the above 3 subscales, respectively. Finally, test–retest reliability, after 15 days for the HLS_EU_Q16, resulted in Spearman’s correlation coefficient of r = 0.628 (p <  0.0001) which show a high correlation. CONCLUSIONS: Results indicate that the HLS_EU_Q16 is a reliable and valid tool for assessing HL in the Greek population.