ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Aging and Public Health
This article is part of the Research TopicEnhancing Geriatric Care with AI: Strategies for Fall Prevention and Aging-in-PlaceView all articles
Development and validation of a fall health literacy scale for Chinese hospitals from the perspective of elderly patients
Provisionally accepted
- 1Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China
- 2Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, Tianjin, China
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Background and aim Health literacy plays an important role in assessing patients' ability to receive information about falls and in educating patients about their health. Understanding the level of fall health literacy of hospitalized elderly patients is essential for implementing fall prevention interventions, but tools for assessing the fall health literacy of hospitalized older patients are lacking. The aim of this study was to develop and validate an instrument for assessing fall health literacy among hospitalized elderly patients in China. Methods The Fall Health Literacy Scale for Hospitalized Elderly Patients was developed in two phases. In the first stage, dimensions and items were generated through a systematic literature review, semistructured interviews, and expert consultation. In the second phase, a cross-sectional study was conducted on 450 hospitalized elderly patients aged 60 years and above in two tertiary hospitals in Tianjin from March to July 2025 to test the reliability and validity of the items. Results The scale comprises 30 items across five dimensions: cognition of fall information, transformation of fall information, implementation of fall information, knowledge of fall information, and personal attitudes and resource factors. This scale demonstrated excellent reliability, with a Cronbach's α of 0.926, a split-half reliability of 0.884, and a test-retest reliability of 0.897. Furthermore, the results of the confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the good construct validity and reliability of the scale. Conclusion The scale has good reliability and validity and is a tool for evaluating fall health literacy from the perspective of elderly patients; additionally, it provides a new perspective for reducing the incidence of falls in China.
Keywords: elderly patient, falls, Health Literacy, scale, Psychometrics
Received: 29 Jul 2025; Accepted: 17 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Miao, Chen, Han, Zhao, Duan, Zhang and Yao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ying Yao, yaoying20081117@163.com
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