Preliminary Study: Reliability of HIV Health Literacy Test (HIV-HLT) among People Living with HIV

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study is to test the validity and reliability of HIV-HLT among people living with HIV. MATERIALS AND METHODS: All 42 participants who visited the HIV clinic, Thammasat University Hospital on October 2019 were enrolled. Participants were patients aged 18 - 64 years old, diagnosed with HIV infection. We developed a 20-item scale in 2019. The principal two components analysis was used to assess the construct validity and reliability of the 20-item scale. The HIV health literacy test is to assess the health literacy needed to participate in HIV care. RESULTS: A total of 42 participants were included in this study. The mean age was 44.95 ± 12.31 years old, 54.8 % were female and 42.8% of the participants graduated with a bachelor’s degree. Of all participants, 42.9% had been diagnosed with HIV for ≥5 years. 92.9% had a CD4 count of more than 200 cells/cm 3 and 81% had viral load below 20 copies/ml. The corrected item-total correlation of 20 items were higher than 2 with Cronbach’s alpha of 0.89. CONCLUSION: HIV-HLT is a reliable instrument. A further study is required to confirm whether items are appropriately listed under each domain.