Publications

Introduction: Low levels of formal education among Lebanese patients with HF were reported. Additionally, limited discharge education is provided to this population. Therefore, it was necessary to evaluate the health literacy levels among this population following the translation of the Heart Failure specific health literacy scale into Arabic to and evaluate its psychometric properties in the Lebanese setting. Methods: A cross-sectional design conducted on participants from the community with confirmed cases of heart failure. A research team was trained for data collection. Following securing participants’ consents, baseline sociodemographic characteristics and the Arabic version of the Heart Failure specific Health Literacy Scale were administered. Data collection took place between June and December, 2022. A pilot sample analysis was done to confirm homogeneity between the English and the Arabic versions. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis were performed to evaluate content and construct validity of the scale. Cronbach alpha was done to evaluate reliability. Results: The pilot analysis confirmed homogeneity of the items of the Arabic and English versions of the scale. The final sample of 343 participants was randomly divided to two parts for each of the Exploratory Factor Analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis. The mean age was 64 years with the majority being male participants. In terms of exploratory factor analysis, the three subscales of the literacy scale explained 60% of the variance. The best acceptable fit was found on 11 items of the scale after dropping the 10th item from the analysis. The Cronbach alpha of the scale was 0.68. Conclusion: The Arabic version of the Heart Failure Specific Health Literacy scale was evaluated to be a valid and reliable tool. Further analysis should be done on the dropped item and correlations should be done with significant variables such as self-care.