Table 2.
Factor structure of the 14-item health literacy scale (HLS-14)
| Mean | SD | Factor loadings | Communality | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Factor 1 | Factor 2 | Factor 3 | |||||
| Functional health literacy | |||||||
| Q1 | Find characters that I cannot read | 3.8 | 0.9 | 0.06 | 0.69 | −0.02 | 0.49 |
| Q2 | Feel that the print is too small for me to read | 3.7 | 1.0 | −0.05 | 0.72 | 0.05 | 0.51 |
| Q3 | Feel that the content is too difficult for me to understand | 3.5 | 1.0 | −0.02 | 0.87 | −0.01 | 0.76 |
| Q4 | Feel that it takes a long time to read them | 3.6 | 1.0 | −0.04 | 0.78 | −0.01 | 0.61 |
| Q5 | Need someone to help me read them | 4.5 | 0.8 | 0.07 | 0.47 | −0.02 | 0.23 |
| Communicative health literacy | |||||||
| Q6 | Collect information from various sources | 3.9 | 1.0 | 0.72 | −0.05 | 0.07 | 0.57 |
| Q7 | Extract the information I want | 3.6 | 0.9 | 0.80 | −0.02 | 0.01 | 0.65 |
| Q8 | Understand the obtained information | 3.5 | 0.8 | 0.83 | 0.09 | −0.14 | 0.61 |
| Q9 | Communicate my opinion about my illness | 3.4 | 0.9 | 0.62 | −0.02 | 0.00 | 0.38 |
| Q10 | Apply the obtained information to my daily life | 3.4 | 0.9 | 0.65 | 0.02 | 0.06 | 0.47 |
| Critical health literacy | |||||||
| Q11 | Consider whether the information is applicable to me | 3.8 | 0.8 | 0.45 | 0.00 | 0.28 | 0.41 |
| Q12 | Consider whether the information is credible | 2.9 | 0.8 | −0.08 | −0.08 | 0.58 | 0.31 |
| Q13 | Check whether the information is valid and reliable | 3.4 | 0.9 | 0.09 | 0.03 | 0.81 | 0.75 |
| Q14 | Collect information to make my healthcare decisions | 3.2 | 1.0 | 0.14 | 0.05 | 0.67 | 0.57 |
Underlined values indicate the greatest factor loadings
SD standard deviation