Structural modelling and assessment of health literacy in allergy prevention of new parents by means of Item-Response-Theory

Parents of newborn children need appropriate early childhood allergy prevention specific health literacy (ECAP-HL) to act responsible and adjuvant concerning the child’s allergy or allergy disposition, respectively. For diagnostic and evaluative assessment purposes there is a need to define the construct ECAP-HL and its structural facets. A comprehensive multidimensional assessment instrument will be developed, which allows measuring and analyzing parents’ facet levels of ECAP-HL. Health literate people are able to find and process health related information and to decide and act purposively to achieve beneficial health goals. ECAP-HL is a more specific construct addressing parent’s perspective on their child’s allergy. ECAP-HL is closely related to allergy specific knowledge, skills and capacities. Parents must be able to assess the child’s allergy related health state and risk factors, to pose answerable questions, to search relevant health information, to critically appraise evidence, to evaluate, and to apply the resulting conclusions in allergy prevention behavior. When modeling and evaluating ECAP-HL, it is important to consider that parents' health-related attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors regarding the newborn's allergy-specific health situation are influenced by the multiple demands of an extraordinary life situation. A comprehensive literature search on ECAP and HL as well as interviews with new parents and experts on ECAP-HL will serve as basis for the conceptual and empirical research. To ensure a valid assessment, scenarios will be defined reflecting everyday life situations which are typical in the life of new parents. A comprehensive item pool will be developed and answered by N = 600 new and expectant parents as well as N = 600 young adults without children. Multidimensional construct properties and facet-specific item scales will be analyzed using Item-Response models. The finalized assessment will be validated in a second data collection phase (N = 300 parents, N = 300 young adults without children).