The most well-known health literacy questionnaires: a narrative review

Background: Health literacy is an important issue in public health and defined as the cognitive and social skills of an individual that determine his/her ability to obtain, access, understand, and apply health information. As the area of social determinant of health and structure content of the questionnaires, such as the perception of health and the health status of people, were neglected in the previous reviews, the present study was conducted to review and compare Health literacy questionnaires, which have domains in these areas, in English and Persian languages.Methods: We reviewed the most famous health literacy questionnaires designed and validated in English and Persian languages published in PubMed, Google Scholar, Ovid, Scientific Information Database, and Barakat Knowledge Network System. After removing repetitive articles, the remaining articles were studied and the questionnaires were qualitatively analyzed.Results: More than ۳۱ well-known English and Persian questionnaires and articles were included in the present review. Among these tools, ۱۷ questionnaires had a section on understanding and comprehension and ۱۴ had calculation and analysis in addition to comprehension. Among the ۳۱ questionnaires, three questionnaires had some items about social determinants of health and ۱۲ had some items about perception of health. According to our study, the questionnaire that covers all areas of health literacy as well as social determinants of health is the HLS-EU-Q, which has been translated into different languages. Conclusion: Since health literacy levels are related to many social determinants of health, the HLS-EU-Q can be used for health literacy evaluation as a strong predictor of a person’s health status.