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Objective (s): Health literacy has been defined as ‘the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process and understand basic health information and services needed to make basic health decisions’. This study aimed to develop and psychometrically evaluate a measure for health literacy in Iranian adults. Methods: A review of literature on all measures of health literacy was conducted in order to generate an item pool. Then, based on a definition of health literacy and the most important public health issues in Iran, a framework was identified in order to develop the initial questionnaire. The initial questionnaire contained 66 items. Accordingly 15 specialists from different disciplines were approached to carry out content validity. Consequently 19 items were removed and a provisional version of the questionnaire with 47 items was provided. Finally, a random sample of adults living in Tehran completed the questionnaire. Psychometric properties of the instrument were assessed performing exploratory factor analysis and internal consistency. Results: In all 336 adults aged 18 to 65 years old completed the questionnaire. When performed the exploratory factor analysis, 33 items were loaded indicating a 5-factor solution for the questionnaire namely: access (6 items), reading (4 items), understanding (7 items), appraisal (4 items), and decision (12 items) that jointly explained %53.2 of variance observed. Additional analysis for internal consistency showed satisfactory results with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranging from 0.72 to 0.89. Conclusion: The findings suggest that the Health Literacy for Iranian Adults (HELIA) is a reliable and valid instrument for measuring health literacy in Iran.

Methods: This was a two-phase study that was conducted during 2009 to 2011 in Tehran, Iran. First, an item pool was prepared according to the literature, focus group discussions, and expert panel. In the quantitative part of the study; content, face and construct validity using factor analysis (both exploratory and confirmatory) were performed and reliability (internal consistency and test-retest) was determined for assessing the psychometric properties of the scale.Results: A 21-item questionnaire was developed through the qualitative phase. In face and content validity process 3 items were dropped. Exploratory factor analysis loaded 17 items with a five-factor solution (nutrition, physical activity, self monitoring of blood glucose, foot care and smoking) that jointly accounted for 67.4% of observed variance. The confirmatory factor analysis showed a good fit to the data. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient indicated a good consistency (α=0.85), and test-retest of the scale with 2-weeks interval confirmed appropriate stability for the scale (ICC=0.81).Conclusion: The findings showed the designed questionnaire can assess the self-efficacy for self-care in middle-aged (30-60 years old) patients with type II diabetes. It is a short and easy to use questionnaire and contains the 5 most important diabetes related behaviors which need self-efficacy for self-care.