Reliability and validity of the Turkish version of the Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Dentistry (TREALD-30)

Abstract

Objective: To culturally adapt the Turkish version of Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Dentistry (TREALD-30) for Turkish-speaking adult dental patients and to evaluate its psychometric properties.

Material and methods: After translation and cross-cultural adaptation, TREALD-30 was tested in a sample of 127 adult patients who attended a dental school clinic in Istanbul. Data were collected through clinical examinations and self-completed questionnaires, including TREALD-30, the Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP), the Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine (REALM), two health literacy screening questions, and socio-behavioral characteristics. Psychometric properties were examined using Classical Test Theory (CTT) and Rasch analysis.

Results: Internal consistency (Cronbach’s Alpha = 0.91) and test-retest reliability (Intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.99) were satisfactory for TREALD-30. It exhibited good convergent and predictive validity. Monthly family income, years of education, dental flossing, health literacy, and health literacy skills were found as stronger predictors of patients’oral health literacy (OHL). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) confirmed a two-factor model. The Rasch model explained 37.9% of the total variance in this dataset. In addition, TREALD-30 had eleven misfitting items, which indicated evidence of multidimensionality. The reliability indeces provided in Rasch analysis (person separation reliability = 0.91 and expected-a-posteriori/plausible reliability = 0.94) indicated that TREALD-30 had acceptable reliability.

Conclusion: TREALD-30 showed satisfactory psychometric properties. It may be used to identify patients with low OHL. Socio-demographic factors, oral health behaviors and health literacy skills should be taken into account when planning future studies to assess the OHL in both clinical and community settings.

Keywords:

• Oral health literacy
• REALD-30
• psychometric evaluation
• Turkish dental patients
• literacy in dentistry

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all of the patients who participated in this study and David F. Chapman for his assistance in editing this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Funding

The study was self-funded by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Kadriye Peker, conceptualized and designed the study, acquired, interpreted the data, drafted the manuscript, and revised the paper. TEK and BG contributed to the data collection. ÖU contributed to the data analysis and interpretation of the results. TLE contributed to the study management.