Instrumento de avaliação do letramento em nutrição para a população brasileira: adaptação transcultural

Abstract

There is a growing interest among researchers regarding Nutrition Literacy (NL), which is defined as the individual's ability to obtain, process and understand basic nutrition information and skills which are necessary to make healthy eating decisions. Through NL evaluation, it is possible to identify the individual's difficulties in specific nutrition topics, which could favour food and nutritional education activities. However, in Brazil, there is no instrument that evaluates NL comprehensively. Therefore, the present study aimed at the cross-cultural adaptation of an NL evaluation instrument, originally developed for the US population. In the first stage, translation and back-translation were performed by consensus and the adaptations according to the reality of the Brazilian population. The second stage consisted of content validation, which was carried out by a committee of six experts, at least one from each region of Brazil. Then, in the third stage, readability was evaluated, to identify the reading level of the instrument. Finally, in the fourth stage, the pre-test was applied to selected subjects with chronic diseases, who were additionally submitted to a sociodemographic questionnaire, a health literacy test (HL), and a cognitive evaluation, in addition to the NL evaluation test for the Brazilian population. After adaptations, the instrument was considered relevant by the majority of specialists and suitable for 8th and 9th of elementary school. In the pre-test, 30 users were evaluated; 50% of them had incomplete elementary education. Inadequate HL was observed in 60% and mild cognitive deficit in 83.3%. The mean time of application of the instrument was 50.57 ± 15.45 minutes. The users with inadequate HL presented lower mean score in the NL evaluation instrument, except for the "Domestic Measures" domain. Among all users, the "Food Groups" domain had the lowest average percentage of correct answers. It is concluded that the instrument was considered relevant for the Brazilian population, by the majority of specialists, however, given the high percentage of users with incomplete elementary education selected for the pre-test, this instrument presented a high level of difficulty for a low educated population. In addition, a limitation of the present study is the long-time application of the NL evaluation instrument. In view of this, it is observed the need for greater adaptations and adjustments, so that, after its validation, the instrument may be useful for food and nutritional education activities.