The communicative and critical health literacy scale--Swedish version

Background: Health literacy (HL) is an important determinant for health and a valuable health indicator within public health. As such, it is a significant outcome variable of health promotion efforts. Valid and reliable instruments are needed to evaluate health promotion interventions and to assess levels of HL in a population. One of the few measurements of communicative and critical HL is the Japanese Communicative and Critical Health Literacy scale (C & C HL scale). To make it possible to use this instrument in Sweden, the C & C HL scale was translated into Swedish and different aspects of validity, including test-retest reliability, of the translated version were tested.

Methods: After translation and back-translation, The Swedish C & C HL scale was tested for content validity and test-retest reliability. Data were collected from a committee consisting of public health experts and bilingual people, and from a test group of 35 persons.

Results: The Swedish C & C HL scale was understandable and showed evidence of content validity. The test-retest confirmed that it was stable over time, percentage agreements for the items ranging from 66% to 89% (M = 74%).

Conclusions: The Swedish C & C HL scale is equivalent to the Japanese C & C HL scale in terms of language and content. The items cover the major aspects of communicative and critical HL and are understandable and stable over time, i.e., reliable.