High consumption of sodium is often associated with an increased risk of hypertension, heart disease, and premature death. Thus, it is vital to have comprehensive data on knowledge, practices, and health literacy levels pertaining to sodium intake for strategized and informed public health initiatives. This study aims to adapt and validate the Chinese Health Literacy Scale for Low Salt Consumption – Hong Kong population (CHLSalt-HK) instrument to be used as assessment tool on health literacy pertaining to salt intake among Malaysian adults and this paper reports the translation and validation process of the instrument. The original CHLSalt-HK in English was translated to Malay by using forward-backward translation, and the preliminary version was obtained with cross-cultural adaptation based on review by three technical experts. A cognitive testing was conducted among 30 patients based on sociodemographic differences such as ethnicity, location, and education level. Their feedback was gained pertaining to comprehension of the instrument in terms of language and terminologies used, the flow and clarity of the instructions, and the questions given. The improvised version of the instrument was then pre-tested among 200 adults’ respondents in Klang Valley for the reliability purposes. The internal consistency of the instrument was acceptable, with Cronbach’s alpha values ranging between 0.624 and 0.830 and 0.825 for the entire instrument. The temporal stability was good, and the intraclass correlation coefficient was >0.6. The adapted and translated version CHLSalt-HK demonstrates adequate psychometric properties for measuring health literacy pertaining to salt intake among Malaysian populations.

Introduction: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) was declared a pandemic in the middle of March as the disease is highly contagious and spread very quickly throughout the world. Understanding the knowledge and practice among healthcare staff is also crucial, especially among the frontlines staff, as they need to protect themselves and facilitate in educating their patients and public regarding disease prevention measures. This study's objective is to assess knowledge, practice, and perception on the effectiveness of the preventive measures taken by Ministry of Health (MOH) staff to prevent transmission of the disease and measures they would take should they develop symptoms of the disease on COVID-19 disease. (TPB). Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional online survey from 30th March 2020 to 6th April 2020 among the Ministry of Health staff. 1719 staff completed the survey. Results The overall correct rate of knowledge was 46.6%. Most participants held good perceptions (range from 77.8% to 98.4%) and good practices (range from 88.8% to 99.7%) towards COVID-19 preventive measure. Meanwhile, the preventive measures practices if they develop symptoms of COVID-19 range from 89.8% to 99.7% and for the perception, it ranges from 85.5% to 98.9%. Conclusions: There are also still some lower percentages of perceptions and practices than expected. Additional education intervention and campaigns are required to provide the Ministry of health staff with adequate knowledge towards COVID 19 main symptoms, general knowledge and transmission route of COVID-19, and increase some of the perceptions and practices on COVID-19 preventive measures.