Assessing the validity of digital health literacy instrument for secondary school students in Ghana: The polychoric factor analytic approach

Edmond Kwesi Agormedah; Frank Quansah; Francis Ankomah; John Elvis Hagan Jr; Medina Srem-Sai; Richard Samuel Kwadwo Abieraba; James Boadu Frimpong; Thomas Schack

doi:10.3389/fdgth.2022.968806

Assessing the validity of digital health literacy instrument for secondary school students in Ghana: The polychoric factor analytic approach

Front Digit Health. 2022 Sep 23:4:968806. doi: 10.3389/fdgth.2022.968806. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Edmond Kwesi Agormedah¹, Frank Quansah², Francis Ankomah^{3

4}, John Elvis Hagan Jr^{5

6}, Medina Srem-Sai⁷, Richard Samuel Kwadwo Abieraba⁷, James Boadu Frimpong⁵, Thomas Schack⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Business / Social Sciences Education, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana.
² Department of Educational Foundations, University of Education, Winneba, Ghana.
³ Department of Education and Psychology, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana.
⁴ Department of Education, SDA College of Education, Koforidua, Ghana.
⁵ Department of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana.
⁶ Neurocognition and Action-Biomechanics-Research Group, Faculty of Psychology and Sports Science, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany.
⁷ Department of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Sports, University of Education, Winneba, Ghana.

Abstract

The emergence of the coronavirus pandemic resulted in the heightened need for digital health literacy among the youth of school-going age. Despite the relevance of digital health literacy among the general public (including students), it appears the measurement of digital health literacy is still a challenge among researchers. Recently, Dadackinski and colleagues adapted existing digital health literacy measures to fit the COVID-19 situation. Since this development, the instrument has been widely used with few validation studies with none in Africa and specifically, in Ghana. The purpose of the study was to assess the validity of the digital health literacy instrument (DHLI) for secondary school students in Ghana using the polychoric factor analysis. We sampled 1,392 students from secondary schools in Ghana. The digital health literacy instrument was administered to the respondents, thereof. The study confirmed the four latent structure of the DHLI. Further, sufficient validity evidence was found regarding the construct validity of the DHLI. The findings from the study support the validity of the DHLI and its utility within the Ghanaian context. With the growing need for digital health literacy among younger people globally, the DHLI provides sufficient grounds for scaling them based on their level of literacy. There is a need for the instrument to be adapted and re-validated in Ghana and among different populations to widen its reproducibility.

Keywords: digital health literacy; factor analysis; polychoric; reliability; students; validity.