French validation of the Health literacy for school-aged children (HLSAC)

Introduction: Health literacy, defined by WHO (World Health Organization) as the motivation and ability of individuals to access, understand and use information in ways that promote and maintain good health, is a critical health issue. Indeed, low levels among individuals can be associated with problems in interpreting health information, more frequent hospitalizations, incorrect use of medicines, poorer overall health, and increased mortality. Purpose of research: While the definitions and the major role of health literacy on the health of individuals are clearly established and seem to be in agreement, the same cannot be said for its measurement. There are only about fifteen tools for college students and none of them are in French. The purpose of this research is therefore to develop a measurement tool that can be used to assess the health literacy level of French schoolchildren. Methodology and Results: After a translation and retro-translation of the existing HLSAC scale (subjective health literacy brief instrument for school-aged children), we submitted it to 385 secondary school students aged 11 to 16 years old from the departments of Ain and Loire (average age = 12.8 years). We then carried out an exploratory factorial analysis, calculated the internal consistency of our tool, and then carried out a confirmatory factorial analysis, calculated fit indices. Finally, we checked the concurrent validity by calculating correlations with a related concept (self-efficacy). Conclusions: Our scale seems to have sufficient psychometric qualities to be able to apprehend the level of health literacy among middle-school students.