TY - JOUR
T1 - Health literacy assessment using talking touchscreen technology (Health LiTT)
T2 - A new item response theory-based measure of health literacy
AU - Hahn, Elizabeth A.
AU - Choi, Seung W.
AU - Griffith, James W.
AU - Yost, Kathleen J.
AU - Baker, David W.
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was supported by grant # R01-HL081485 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Portions of this manuscript were presented at the Health Literacy 2nd Annual Research Conference, Bethesda, MD, October 18–19, 2010. The authors thank David Cella, Richard Gershon, David Victorson and Kimberly Webster for scientific and creative contributions. We also thank all the patients who participated in this study.
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - The importance of health literacy has grown considerably among researchers, clinicians, patients, and policymakers. Better instruments and measurement strategies are needed. Our objective was to develop a new health literacy instrument using novel health information technology and modern psychometrics. We designed Health LiTT as a self-administered multimedia touchscreen test based on item response theory (IRT) principles. We enrolled a diverse group of 619 English-speaking, primary care patients in clinics for underserved patients. We tested three item types (prose, document, quantitative) that worked well together to reliably measure a single dimension of health literacy. The Health LiTT score meets psychometric standards (reliability of 0.90 or higher) for measurement of individual respondents in the low to middle range. Mean Health LiTT scores were associated with age, race/ethnicity, education, income, and prior computer use (p.05). We created an IRT-calibrated item bank of 82 items. Standard setting needs to be performed to classify and map items onto the construct and to identify measurement gaps. We are incorporating Health LiTT into an existing online research management tool. This will enable administration of Health LiTT on the same touchscreen used for other patient-reported outcomes, as well as real-time scoring and reporting of health literacy scores.
AB - The importance of health literacy has grown considerably among researchers, clinicians, patients, and policymakers. Better instruments and measurement strategies are needed. Our objective was to develop a new health literacy instrument using novel health information technology and modern psychometrics. We designed Health LiTT as a self-administered multimedia touchscreen test based on item response theory (IRT) principles. We enrolled a diverse group of 619 English-speaking, primary care patients in clinics for underserved patients. We tested three item types (prose, document, quantitative) that worked well together to reliably measure a single dimension of health literacy. The Health LiTT score meets psychometric standards (reliability of 0.90 or higher) for measurement of individual respondents in the low to middle range. Mean Health LiTT scores were associated with age, race/ethnicity, education, income, and prior computer use (p.05). We created an IRT-calibrated item bank of 82 items. Standard setting needs to be performed to classify and map items onto the construct and to identify measurement gaps. We are incorporating Health LiTT into an existing online research management tool. This will enable administration of Health LiTT on the same touchscreen used for other patient-reported outcomes, as well as real-time scoring and reporting of health literacy scores.
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U2 - 10.1080/10810730.2011.605434
DO - 10.1080/10810730.2011.605434
M3 - Article
C2 - 21951249
AN - SCOPUS:80053472411
SN - 1081-0730
VL - 16
SP - 150
EP - 162
JO - Journal of Health Communication
JF - Journal of Health Communication
IS - SUPPL. 3
ER -