Divisão de Literacia, Saúde e Bem-Estar, Direção-Geral da Saúde, 1049-005 Lisbon, Portugal.
Católica Research Centre for Psychological-Family and Social Wellbeing (CRC-W), Faculdade de Ciências Humanas, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, 1649-023 Lisbon, Portugal.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Apr 1;19(7):4225. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19074225.
Health literacy entails the knowledge, motivation, and competencies to access, understand, appraise, and apply health information in order to make judgments and decisions in everyday life concerning health care, disease prevention, and health promotion to maintain or improve quality of life throughout the life course. It has become an essential concept in public health. It is considered a modifiable determinant of health decisions, health behaviors, health, and healthcare outcomes. Prior studies suggest highly variable levels of health literacy across European countries. Assessing and monitoring health literacy is critical to support interventions and policies to improve health literacy. This study aimed to describe the process of adaptation to Portugal of the short-form version of the Health Literacy Survey (HLS-Q12) from the Health Literacy Population Survey Project 2019-2021, also establishing the health literacy levels in the Portuguese population. The sample comprised 1247 valid cases. The survey consisted of a brief questionnaire on the determinants of health literacy, plus the HLS-Q12 questionnaire and the specific health literacies packages on digital health literacy, navigational health literacy, and vaccination health literacy. The results suggest that 7 out of 10 people in Portugal (mainland) have high health literacy levels and support the results of other studies concerning the main socioeconomic determinants of general health literacy. Furthermore, the results suggest that "navigation in the health system" tasks are the most challenging tasks regarding specific health literacies. The overall data suggest the HLS-Q12 as a feasible measure to assess health literacy in the Portuguese population. Thus, it can be used in Portugal to assess the population's needs and monitor and evaluate policies and initiatives to promote health literacy by addressing its societal, environmental, personal, and situational modifiable determinant factors.
健康素养是指获取、理解、评估和应用健康信息以做出日常决策的知识、动机和能力，这些决策涉及医疗保健、疾病预防和健康促进，以维持或改善整个生命周期的生活质量。它已成为公共卫生的一个重要概念。健康素养被认为是健康决策、健康行为、健康和医疗保健结果的可改变决定因素。先前的研究表明，欧洲各国的健康素养水平存在很大差异。评估和监测健康素养对于支持干预措施和政策以提高健康素养至关重要。本研究旨在描述 2019-2021 年健康素养人群调查项目中健康素养调查（HLS-Q12）短版在葡萄牙的适应过程，同时确定葡萄牙人口的健康素养水平。样本包括 1247 个有效案例。该调查包括一个关于健康素养决定因素的简短问卷，外加 HLS-Q12 问卷以及关于数字健康素养、导航健康素养和疫苗接种健康素养的特定健康素养包。结果表明，葡萄牙（本土）有 7 成人具有较高的健康素养水平，这支持了其他关于一般健康素养的主要社会经济决定因素的研究结果。此外，结果表明，“在卫生系统中导航”任务是特定健康素养中最具挑战性的任务。总体数据表明 HLS-Q12 是评估葡萄牙人口健康素养的可行措施。因此，它可在葡萄牙用于评估人口需求，并通过解决其社会、环境、个人和情境可改变的决定因素，监测和评估促进健康素养的政策和举措。
