Assessment of Health Literacy among People in a Rural Area in Malaysia Using Newest Vital Signs Assessment

Introduction: Health literacy is defined as the ability to access, understand, evaluate and communicate information as a way to promote, maintain and improve health in a variety of settings across the whole duration of the person’s life. Effective health literacy begins in early childhood and continually builds on knowledge and experience gained throughout the life span.

Aims: To determine the use of Newest Vital Sign (NVS) in the Malay language as a tool to measure level of health literacy among adults in the rural population of Malaysia.

Study Design: Cross sectional study.

Place and Duration of Study: Federal Land Development Authority Settlement Scheme (FELDA) in the state of Pahang, Malaysia, from January 2011 to December 2012.

Methodology: NVS in the Malay language was administered to 300 respondents who were 18 years of age and above, able to converse in Malay, literate, have a visual acuity sufficient to read the instruments being tested, have normal cognitive function, enough to interact with the study personnel and able to do simple calculations, were included in this study.

Results: The study revealed that, of the 111 respondents, 34 completed the questionnaire within three minutes. Seven (20.6%) adults were of adequate literacy having the ability to answer a minimum of four questions correctly within three minutes given. Meanwhile, 17 (50.0%) adults were of limited possible literacy and 10 (29.4%) were of the limited likely group.

Conclusion: The Malay version of NVS was inappropriate and inadequate to measure the health literacy among adults in the rural population. This study showed that 50% of adults in the rural population has a limited possible level of health literacy.