Development and validation of a short-form, rapid estimate of adult literacy in medicine.

Background: Although prior studies used the 66-item Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine (REALM instrument) for literacy assessment, researchers may require a shorter, validated instrument when designing interventions for clinical contexts.

Objective: To develop and validate a very brief literacy assessment tool, the REALM-Short Form (REALM-SF).

Patients: The model development, validation, and field testing validation samples included 1336, 164, and 50 patients, respectively.