Instrument to Measure Health Literacy About Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Abstract

Background and Purpose: Health literacy is an essential skill for today’s health care consumers. The growth in use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) adds to the complexity of being sufficiently health literate. The purpose of this article is to describe the initial psychometric evaluation of the “Montana State University (MSU) CAM Health Literacy Scale,” a newly developed instrument to measure an individual’s health literacy about CAM. Methods: Exploratory factor analyses, reliabilities, and conceptual considerations were used. Results: The outcome is a 21-item instrument with Cronbach’s alpha of .753 and 42.27% explained variance. Convergent validity assessments revealed weak but significant correlations between the scale and measures of general health literacy. Conclusions: The MSU CAM Health Literacy Scale has promise for use in future research and clinical endeavors.