An Innovative Tool to Assess the Literary Parameters of a Health Story-Literary Devices Assessment Scoring' (LDAS) Tool

Abstract

Health story development is an emerging technique that seeks behavioral changes in the patients to achieve health targets. There are many challenges one may face while developing a story for health communication. A big challenge usually faced by a health story writer or developer while compiling the story maybe being evidence-based vs. staying true to the story. While understanding literary elements are essential for a health story and while there are numerous tools available to evaluate the scientific evidence presented in health story, no tool is available that can assess the literary parameters of a health story. Therefore, the present study aimed to develop and validate an innovative tool that may be used for the assessment of a health story for its literary attributes. Following a comprehensive literature search, an initial twenty-one-item scale was developed and was subjected for content validation to a panel of experts (n=30). The pre-validation version of the scale contained 21 items. However, the final version of the scale was reduced to 15 items as six items were removed and/ or merged together. Content validity index showed that the "item content validity-index" (I-CVI) and the "scale content-validity index" (S-CVI) were ≥ 80% each. In addition, the Cronbach's alpha value was 0.8. These results suggest a satisfactory reliability co-efficient of the scale. Based on I-CVI, S-CVI and Cronbach's alpha values, the scale that was developed and validated in the present study for the assessment of literary quality of the health story is a reliable scale.