“The ehealth literacy scale” (eHEALS) – tradução e validação da versão brasileira de uma escala de alfabetização em saúde eletrônica

Abstract

The electronic health literacy (eHealth) deals with individuals in seeking, finding, assessing, integrating and applying health knowledge acquired directly from various electronic media. Considering the importance of providing adequate instruments to measure these skills, the present study aims to perform a translation and a crosscultural adaptation of the instrument “The Health Literacy Scale” (eHEALS) to a Portuguese language and validate a Brazilian version for use in health studies. The instrument was translated into Portuguese and back-translated into English by four independent translators. To assess the need for adaptations, the pretest version was applied to 20 volunteers with different levels of education. Subsequently, 514 higherlevel students, aged 15 to 55, were recruited as volunteers. Three instruments were applied: a) eHEALS, b) a questionnaire with demographic, socioeconomic, health information utilization, healthy lifestyle and self-perception of health issues, and c) General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES). Data were statistically analyzed for internal consistency, construct, concurrent, discriminant, convergent and predictive validity. The Brazilian version of eHEALS has been translated and validated, has a onedimensional character and good internal consistency values (Cronbach's α = 0.89), being a valid and reliable measurement tool to measure eHealth literacy levels in Brazil. Significant correlations were found between eHEALS and race, age, course, graduation phase, paternal occupation, and frequency of searching for health information. The study also concluded that the search for health information on Websites is related to the higher risk of negative self-perception of general health. Additional research that contemplates the application of the Brazilian version of eHEALS in different contexts can be carried out to assess eHealth literacy in Brazilian public health and, thus, to verify the need for interventions that aim to improve it.