Validation of the extended e-health literacy scale : structural validity, construct validity and measurement invariance

Petrič, Gregor (author), Atanasova, Sara (author)

Given the rapid proliferation and use of online health resources, many of which may be of dubious quality, there is an increasing need to develop electronic health literacy (e-health literacy) skills among the population of internet users. E-health literacy encompasses the skills and abilities needed to access, understand, validate, evaluate, interpret, and apply online health-related information. Measuring e-health literacy has become crucial for developing targeted interventions, assessing their impact, and producing high-quality research findings that can inform health policy and clinical practice, which can lead to improved health outcomes and potentially reducing health inequalities. The scales need to be valid and reliable so that decisions are based on high-quality data. In this regard, the issue of the measurement invariance of scales across different demographic groups has been neglected. This is critical, as assessments should be valid across different sociodemographic groups to avoid bias when comparing them. The aim of this study was to validate the Extended e-health literacy scale (eHEALS-E) on general population and investigate its structural validity and internal consistency, construct validity in terms of convergent and discriminant validity, and examine its measurement invariance across gender, age, education and social status.

• Language: English
• Keywords: e-health literacy, measure, scale, validity. measurement invariance
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FDV - Faculty of Social Sciences
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Publication date: 25.07.2024
• Year: 2024
• Number of pages: 11 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 24, [article no. ] ǂ1991
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-161483
• UDC: 303:614
• ISSN on article: 1471-2458
• DOI: 10.1186/s12889-024-19431-8
• COBISS.SI-ID: 203113475
• Publication date in RUL: 11.09.2024

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: BMC public health
• Shortened title: BMC Public Health
• Publisher: BioMed Central
• ISSN: 1471-2458
• COBISS.SI-ID: 2446356

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Projects

• Funder: ARIS - Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
• Project number: P5-0168-2022
• Name: Družboslovna metodologija, statistika in informatika