JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Suitable health education materials can educate people about the potential harms of high-risk factors, leading to expected behavior changes and improved health outcomes. However, most patient education materials were not suitable in terms of content, structure, design, composition, and language, as stated in the literature. There is a pressing need to use well-designed scales to assess the suitability of health education materials. Although such assessment is a common practice in English-speaking communities, few assessment tools are available in mainland China.

Objective:

This study aimed to translate and adapt the Suitability Assessment of Materials (SAM) for evaluation of health-related information for adults into a simplified-Chinese version and validate its reliability for evaluating the suitability of health education materials written in simplified Chinese in mainland China.

Methods:

The SAM was translated into a simplified-Chinese version (S-C-SAM) in three steps: (1) translating the SAM into a S-C-SAM, (2) translating the S-C-SAM back into an English version, and (3) testing the translation equivalence between the two English versions (original and back-translated) of the SAM linguistically and culturally. Any differences between these two English versions were resolved through a panel discussion. The validity of the S-C-SAM was determined by measuring its content validity index. The final version of the S-C-SAM was used by 3 native Chinese-speaking health educators to assess 15 air pollution-related health education materials. Cohen’s kappa coefficient and Cronbach’s alpha were calculated to determine the interrater agreement and internal consistency of the S-C-SAM.

Results:

We agreed on the final version of the S-C-SAM after settling the discrepancies between the two English versions (original and back-translated) and revising two items (sentences) rated negatively in content validation. The S-C-SAM was proven valid and reliable: the content validity index was .95 both in clarity and in relevance, Cohen’s kappa coefficient for interrater agreement was .61 (p<.05), and Cronbach’s alpha for internal consistency was .71.

Conclusions:

The S-C-SAM is the first simplified-Chinese version of the SAM. It has been proven valid and reliable for evaluating the suitability of air pollution-related health education materials written in simplified Chinese in mainland China. It has the potential to be used for assessing the suitability of health education materials specifically selected for other health education purposes.