LAUSR

Health literacy (HL) is recognized as one of the major determinants of health. International population HL surveys in Europe and Asia using a unified measurement of European Health Literacy Survey Questionnaire (HLS-EU-Q) demonstrated similar results of approximately 50% of population having poor or problematic health literacy level. In the present study the HLS-EU Q47 was adapted for the Russian population for the first time. Russian language is spoken widely beyond the Russian Federation (RF). Among international migrants, more than 25 million are from the RF or former Soviet Union, typically speak Russian and have a common historical and cultural background. Adaptation of the questionnaire was based on the HLS-EU methodology and included 5 stages: translation from English into Russian, back translation by two independent translators, focus group (n = 12), online expert opinion (n = 12), field-testing (n = 90). For the focus group, the purposeful sampling was used, stratified by gender, age, education level and place of living (urban/rural). The field-testing was conducted by personal interviews in households, using a random stratified sampling based on gender and age. The translations analysis identified discrepancies on the use of plain language, and allowed to simplify the wording in 10 questions (13%). The focus group and expert opinion qualitative analysis allowed identifying and adapting cultural and linguistic peculiarities, so 24 questions (31%) were adapted. The field-testing showed 86% feasibility of the questionnaire in real settings. Despite that the instrument was translated into Russian and used in some countries for the Russian-speaking population, a substantial adaptation of the questionnaire is necessary, taking into account the cultural and linguistic characteristics and background of the studied population. The instrument can contribute for measurement of HL in Russian population living in different countries. The HLS-EU-Q 47 was adapted for the Russian population. The adapted instrument can contribute to further health literacy measurements of the Russian population worldwide.