Psychometric Testing of HeLD‐14 in a Colombian Geriatric Population

Introduction . The objective of this study was to test the validity and reliability of the Colombian version of the Health Literacy in Dentistry (HeLD‐14) in older adults. Materials and Methods . A translation and validation study of HeLD‐14 was conducted on 384 non‐institutionalized older adults attending the Dental Clinic at Universidad Cooperativa from Pasto, Colombia. A cross‐cultural adaptation of a multidimensional HeLD‐14 was completed, and the psychometric properties of this scale were evaluated through a cross‐validation method using an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Internal consistency was measured with Cronbach’s alpha ( α ) and Omega’s McDonald ( ɷ ). The statistical significance was set at P < 0.05. Results . The EFA demonstrated that a single‐factor structure with 11 items explained a cumulative 59.86% of the overall variance. The CFA confirmed that goodness of fit indices of this questionnaire had optimal adequateness ( χ 2 S-B = 109.047; χ 2 S-B /(44) = 2.478, P = 0.001; non‐normed fit index = 0.901; comparative fit index = 0.908; root mean square error of approximation = 0.079 (90% CI (0.075, 0.083)); standardized root mean residual = 0.080). The coefficients indicated a high internal consistency for the total scale ( α = 0.94; ɷ = 0.96). Conclusion . The developed adaptation of HeLD‐14 for the Colombian population, HeLD‐Col, is a unidimensional, reliable, and valid instrument to assess oral health literacy in older adults in Colombia.