Table 3. Performance of Health Literacy and Numeracy Screening Items in Detecting Limited and Marginal Newest Vital Sign Scores
Screening ItemScale*Sensitivity (%)Specificity (%)
How often do you have problems learning about your medical condition because of difficulty understanding written information?Always1000
Often50.062.8
Sometimes28.190.3
Occasionally8.399.3
Never2.1100
How often do you have someone help you read hospital materials?Always1000
Often46.982.1
Sometimes31.395.2
Occasionally15.699.3
Never4.299.3
How confident are you filling out medical forms by yourself?Extremely1000
Quite a bit56.366.9
Somewhat33.396.6
A little bit11.5100
Not at all4.2100
In general, how easy or hard do you find it to understand medical statistics?Very easy1000
Easy88.425.5
Hard31.685.5
Very hard6.399.3
How much do you agree or disagree with the following statement? In general, I depend on numbers and statistics to help me make decisions about my health.Strongly agree1000
Somewhat agree78.113.8
Somewhat disagree33.364.1
Strongly disagree10.486.2
  • * Relative comparisons of underlying degree or frequency; categories do not necessarily correspond to the actual numeric coding (i.e., the ascending or descending ordering of each Likert scale) of the item responses.