Is the Cloze Procedure Appropriate to Evaluate Health Literacy in Older Individuals? Age Effects in the Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults

Table 1

Description of sample.

	Younger than 65 ( = 167)		65 or older ( = 69)		All participants ( = 236)
	Mean	SD	Mean	SD	Mean	SD
Age (years)	42.81	13.46	73.90	6.01	51.90	18.42
Education (years)	13.01	2.37	13.48	2.54	13.15	2.42
TOFHLA reading^a	45.83	4.66	45.28	7.21	45.67	5.52
General verbal ability^b	92.38	10.40	99.22	12.24	94.38	11.38
Reading skills^c	94.83	9.30	101.43	14.14	96.76	11.32
Digit span backwards^d	6.72	2.45	6.19	2.05	6.57	2.35

Total number of TOFHLA reading comprehension items answered correctly (range 0–50).
^bWoodcock-Johnson Psychoeducational Battery Verbal Comprehension composite score (mean = 100; SD = 15).
^cWoodcock-Johnson Psychoeducational Battery Passage Comprehension subtest standard score (mean = 100; SD = 15).
^dWechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, 3rd Ed. Digit Span Backward subtest raw score.