Scholarly record

EVALUATION OF A STANDARDIZED QUESTIONNAIRE TO ASSESS HEALTH LITERACY IN CHILDREN AND TEENAGERS AND THE UTILIZATION IN PRACTICE

A. Machova, M. Boledovicova, D. novakova

Abstract

The goal of the paper is to present the research project ZGO2016_001 called “Health Literacy in Selected Groups of the South Bohemian Population”. The study deals with health literacy relating to social, cultural and gender differences in the population of the South Bohemian Region, the Czech Republic. Our target group includes school children and teenagers. The improvement of health literacy is one of the goals of Health 2020. Most of the tools for the assessment of health literacy were only tested with adult population. However, health literacy is also important for children and teenagers, who want more and more frequently, make independent decisions concerning their health. In the Part 1, the methods of questioning and in-depth dialogues were used for older school children and teenagers. Work sheets with pictures describing various situations concerning health were developed for younger children. The results were analyzed by the “pen and paper” method. The Part 2 was focused on older school children and teenagers using the standardized HLS-EU-Q questionnaire for the evaluation. Both the 47-item form focusing on difficulties associated with getting, understanding, assessing and using the information concerning decision making in health care, prevention of diseases and health promotion, and an abbreviated 16-item form were used. It resulted from the outcomes that the unabbreviated questionnaire form was time-consuming for all age groups of the respondents and, moreover, children below 12 had great problems to understand the formulation of some questions. As a result of these findings, the abbreviated HLS-EUQ16 version was chosen for the further quantitative study and the target group was re-defined (12 – 18 years, inclusive) and instructions for questioners were elaborated. In the last phase, dialogues with approximately 300 respondents will be held, the results will be statistically processed and used for the education of children and teenagers in the area of health literacy.

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