Health and Social Welfare Review

Abstract

This study constructed a 3-item candidate health literacy screening tool based on the HLS-EU-Q16 and evaluated its classification performance using Korea Health Panel data. Data from 8,358 adults with complete HLS-EU-Q16 responses were analyzed. Three candidate combinations were constructed based on item distributions, corrected item-total correlations, internal consistency, exploratory factor analysis, and content representativeness. Low health literacy was defined as a full-scale score of 12 or lower. Split-sample validation and sensitivity analyses were conducted. Candidate 1 (HLIT1, HLIT8, and HLIT12) had a Cronbach’s α of .787 and a correlation of r=.902 with the full scale. At a cutoff score of 2 or lower, sensitivity was 98.2%, specificity 78.8%, accuracy 88.3%, negative predictive value 97.8%, balanced accuracy 88.5%, and AUC 0.965. Its AUC ranked second among all 560 possible 3-item combinations, while its sensitivity and negative predictive value were higher than those of the top-AUC combination. In the validation sample, sensitivity and negative predictive value were 98.3% and 98.0%, respectively. Candidate 1 showed potential as a brief screening tool for rapidly identifying individuals at risk of low health literacy.

초록

본 연구는 한국의료패널 자료를 활용하여 HLS-EU-Q16 기반 3문항 건강문해력 선별 후보도구를 구성하고 분류 성능을 평가하는 것을 목적으로 수행하였다. 연구 대상은 완전응답 성인 8,358명이며, 문항분포, 문항–총점 상관, 내적 일관성, 요인분석 및 내용적 대표성을 검토하여 세 예비조합을 구성하였다. 원척도 12점 이하를 저건강문해력군으로 정의하고 표본분할 및 민감도 분석을 시행하였다. 연구 결과 예비조합1(HLIT1, HLIT8, HLIT12)은 Cronbach’s α=.787, 원척도와의 상관 r=.902였다. 2점 이하 기준에서 민감도 98.2%, 특이도 78.8%, 정확도 88.3%, 음성예측도 97.8%, 균형정확도 88.5%, AUC 0.965였다. 560개 조합 중 AUC는 2위였고, 최고 조합보다 민감도와 음성예측도가 높았다. 검증표본에서도 민감도 98.3%, 음성예측도 98.0%였다. 예비조합1은 저건강문해력 위험군을 신속히 포착하기 위한 3문항 선별 후보도구로 활용 가능성이 있다.