[Evaluation of reliability and validity of Chinese version of a short-form of Health Literacy Dental scale (HeLD-14) in the application among parents of preschool children].

Objective: To assess the reliability, and validity of the Chinese version of a short-form of Health Literacy Dental scale (HeLD-14) in 3-6 years old preschool children's parents.

Methods: The study population consisted of those eligible 3-6 years old preschool children's parents in Yanqing District, Beijing, China in 2021. A total of 1 479 preschool children's parents were surveyed by questionnaire to understand the general situation of parents and oral health literacy related content. SPSS 21.0 and Mplus 7.4 were used for statistical analysis. Through Cronbach's coefficient, confirmatory factor analysis, Pearson correlation calculation, Student's test and other methods, the internal consistency reliability, structure validity, calibration validity and discrimination validity of the scale were evaluated.

Results: The Cronbach's coefficient of Chinese version HeLD-14 scale was 0.958, and Cronbach's coefficient of different constructs ranged from 0.778 to 0.963. The confirmatory factor analysis showed that the factor loadings of each item of the Chinese version HeLD-14 scale were between 0.719 and 0.977 ( < 0.001), root-mean-square error of approximation (RMSEA)=0.04, comparative fix index (CFI)=0.992, Tucker-Lewis index (TLI)=0.988, and the model had good goodness of fit. The total score of the Chinese version HeLD-14 scale and the scores of the dimension of concerning, understanding, supporting, financial burden, medical treatment, communication, and application were all positively correlated with general self-efficacy, and the correlation coefficients were 0.439, 0.406, 0.370, 0.344, 0.346, 0.367, 0.373, 0.390, respectively ( all < 0.05). For parents in the high group with the top 27% HeLD-14 score, the average HeLD-14 score was 69.27±1.06, which was higher than the low group with the bottom 27% HeLD-14 score, 41.29±11.09 (=48.13, < 0.01).

Conclusion: The Chinese version HeLD-14 scale has good reliability and validity in the 3-6 years old preschool children's parents, and can be used as a tool to assess the oral health literacy of parents of preschool children.