A Study on the Development of a Health Literacy Assessment Scale

Background: The study aims to develop a Health Literacy Assessment Scale (HLAS) that would be applied to 18+ year-old individuals in Şanlıurfa, can be understood by the society, and fits to their sociocultural levels, as well as aiming to assess the effects of some sociodemographic variables that are thought to affect the scale scores. Materials and Methods: The research is of methodological type. The study data were collected in Zeliha Öncel Family Healthcare Center, which has 6 units and is located in Haliliye district, be-tween 01.07.2021 and 15.08.2021. 100 for the first pilot, 100 for the second pilot and 330 for the main study were included in the study. The items in the scale were created by the researcher to determine the level of health literacy. Results: Total median scores were found to be higher among males in comparison to females, among the age groups of 18-24 and 25-34 years in comparison to other age groups, among uni-versity graduates in comparison to other educational levels, among non-married and di-vorced/separated individuals in comparison to other marital statuses, and among those having social security in comparison to others. Conclusions: As a result of this study, it was determined that the candidate scale, which was supported by validity and reliability analyzes, could be used to evaluate the health literacy of individuals in the region.