Validity and Reliability of Iranian Version of eHealth Literacy Scale

Abstract Introduction: eHEALS is an 8-item measure of eHealth literacy developed to measure consumers’ combined knowledge, comfort, and perceived skills at finding, evaluating, and applying electronic health information to the health problems. Hence, the current study aimed to measure validity and reliability of the Iranian version of eHEALS questionnaire in a population context. Materials & Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 525 youth’s people, who were randomly chosen in Iran, Yazd. As a matter of fact, content validity, construct validity and predictive validity of the translated questionnaire were determined. Principal components factor analysis was used to determine the theoretical fit of the measures with the data. The internal consistency of the translated questionnaire was evaluated using Cronbach ? coefficient and the results were analyzed applying SPSS software (ver, 16). Results: The principal component analysis (PCA) produced a single factor solution (70.48% of variance) with factor loading ranging from 0.723 to 0.862. The internal consistency of the scale was sufficient (alpha= 0.88 , P < 0.001) and the test-retest coefficients for the items were reliable (r= 0.96, P < 0.001). Conclusion: The results of the current study revealed that the items in the translated questionnaire were equivalent to the original scale .The Iranian version of the eHEALS questionnaire showed a good reliability and validity in regard with the screening of eHealth literacy of Iranian people.