title: A New Comprehensive Short-form Health Literacy Survey Tool for Patients in General.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To validate a conceptual short-form health literacy 12 items questionnaire (HL-SF12) in patient populations.
  
  
  METHODS
  A cross-sectional study was conducted via a convenient sample of 403 patients from three departments of a community general hospital in the northern Taiwan. Patients' health literacy was assessed with a validated HL-SF12, derived from the full scale, the European Health Literacy Survey Questionnaire (HLS-EU-Q), as well as a single-item from Chew's Set of Brief Health Literacy Question. A reference population in Northern Taiwan (n=928) via the HLS-EU-Q in 2013-2014 was used as a reference to compare the health literacy between that of the general public and the patients. Data was analyzed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), internal consistency analysis, correlation analysis, and linear regression models.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Patients' health literacy assessed with the HL-SF12 was shown with high internal consistency (Cronbach α=.87), and moderately correlated with the single-item from Chew's Set of Brief Health Literacy Question, with satisfactory item-scale convergent validity (item-scale correlation ≥ .40), without floor/ceiling effect, and with satisfactory goodness of fit indices of the three-factor construct model for most of the patients. Their health literacy was significantly positively associated with female gender, higher income, and more often watching health-related TV programs. On the other hands, patients were reported with significantly higher healthcare health literacy than the general public, but not in general health literacy, disease prevention health literacy, or health promotion health literacy.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The comprehensive HL-SF12 was a valid and easy to use tool for assessing patients' health literacy in the hospitals to facilitate healthcare providers in enhancing patients' health literacy and healthcare qualities.
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan; Department of Environmental Health Sciences, National Health Research Institutes, Miaoli, Taiwan; Institutional Research Center, Yuanpei University of Medical Technology, Hsin-Chu, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Tuyen Van
authors.initials: TV
authors.lastname: Duong
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan; Department of Family Medicine, National Taipei Hospital, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Peter WuShou
authors.initials: PW
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics, National Taipei Hospital, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Shih-Hsien
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Department of Traditional Complementary Medicine, National Taipei Hospital, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Ming-Chu
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatrics, National Taipei Hospital, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Wei-Ting
authors.initials: WT
authors.lastname: Chao
authors.affiliation: School of Health Studies, Western University, London, Canada.
authors.forename: Tara
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Public Health Program, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, USA.
authors.forename: Priscilla
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Chiao
authors.affiliation: Department of Health care management, Yuanpei University of Medical Technology, Hsin-Chu, Taiwan. Electronic address: hlhuang@mail.ypu.edu.tw.
authors.forename: Hsiao-Ling
authors.initials: HL
authors.lastname: Huang
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D057220:Health Literacy; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010361:Patients; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013624:Taiwan
keywords: health literacy; hospitals; patients; surveys