600 Section - Validation and Reliability of the Thai Falls Health Literacy Scale for Older Adults in a Rehabilitation Setting

Falls is the main cause of injury, increasing dependency, and reducing quality of life in older adults. The current intervention for prevention of fall is health literacy. This study aimed to provide a validated, cross-cultural, Thai version of the Falls Health Literacy Scale (FHLS).

Design:

We included data from 107 Thai adults aged ≥60 years who attending a rehabilitation outpatient clinic. The original version of FHLS was translated into Thai by cross-cultural adaptation. Content validity was evaluated by a multidisciplinary expert using the Content Validity Index. Internal consistency was evaluated by Cronbach’s alpha. Test–retest reliability was examined using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). For concurrent validity were assessed with the Falls Efficacy Scale–International (FES-I) using Spearman’s rank correlation. Discriminant validity compared with the high fall risk group (frail) and low fall risk (non-frail) using Mann-Whitney U-test.

Results: Female participants accounted for 86.9%, with a median age of 68 years (IQR 68,72). The Thai FHLS demonstrated excellent content validity (CVI = 0.92; S-CVI = 0.98). Internal consistency was good across domains (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.783–0.868). Test–retest reliability showed good stability over time (ICC = 0.839; 95% CI 0.772–0.887). A significant weak negative correlation was observed between FHLS and FES-I scores (Spearman’s r = −0.307, p = 0.001). Discriminant validity was supported by significantly lower FHLS scores in the Falls Prevention Experience domain among the high fall risk group (p < 0.05).

Conclusion: The Thai version of the FHLS exhibits good validity and reliability for assessing falls-related health literacy in older adults. This scale may be useful in rehabilitation settings to identify health literacy gaps and support individualized fall prevention information.