Sinicization and reliability and validity test of the short⁃form of Health Literacy in Dentistry(HeLD⁃14)

ObjectiveTo translate the short⁃form of Health Literacy in Dentistry（HeLD⁃14） into Chinese and test its reliability and validity among the Chinese population.MethodsThe Brislin translation model was used to ranslate the scale.And the Chinese version of HeLD⁃14 was developed，including 7 dimensions （acceptance，understanding，support，financial burden，medical treatment，communication，and application） and a total of 14 items.From July to August 2020，a convenient sampling method was used to recruit 422 grassroots medical staff from the prefectures of Ganzi，Aba，and Liangshan in Sichuan province for taking investigation.The scale's validity was evaluated through structural and discriminative validity；internal consistency reliability and test⁃retest reliability were used to test the scale's reliability.ResultsA total of 399 questionnaires were effectively returned.And the effective response rate was 94.55%.The total Cronbach's α coefficient of the scale was 0.908，and the test⁃retest reliability was 0.988.The confirmatory factor analysis results showed that Chi⁃square/degrees of freedom （χ2/df） was 2.84.The standardized root mean square residual （SRMR） was 0.026，root mean square error of approximation （RMSEA） was 0.068，Tucker⁃Lewis index （TLI） was 0.957.And the comparative fit index （CFI） was 0.974，which fit well with the dimensional structure of the original scale.The differences of HeLD⁃14 scores among medical staff from hospitals with different levels，different specialties，and whether having commercial insurance or not，were statistically significant（P<0.05）.ConclusionsThe Chinese version of HeLD⁃14 had good reliability and validity，which could be used to investigate the oral health literacy of the Chinese people.However，the practicality of the scale should be futher verified.