Diabetic Health Literacy and Associated Factors among Diabetic Patients Attending Outpatient Department at Public Hospitals in North Shoa Zone, Amhara Region, Ethiopia, 2022

Abstract

Background Diabetic health literacy plays an important role in determining diabetic outcomes. Despite the numerous health education programs, the outcome of the diabetic management remains a challenge globally & studies on diabetic health literacy are still lacking in Ethiopia. Therefore, the present study was aimed to assess the magnitude of diabetic health literacy and related factors among patients with diabetes attends outpatient department at public hospitals in North Shoa Zone, Amhara Region, Ethiopia, 2022 Methods Institution based cross-sectional study design was conducted from May24-June24, 2022 at four randomly selected hospitals among 623 total study participants. The data was collected by face to face interview and reviewing the patient chart. The participants were selected by systematic random sampling. Data was entered in to Epi data version 4.6 and was exported to Stata version 14.1 for analyses. Ordinal logistic regression was conducted and a significant level was used at a p value of < 0.05. Result The present study included a total of 611 participants, with 98.1% response rate. Of all participants, 300(49.1%) had low, 174(28.5%) moderate &137(22.4%) had high diabetic health literacy level. The following factors; age; <40 years old (AOR = 3.48; 95%CI = 2.11, 5.77) & age 40–60 years (AOR = 2.79;95% CI = 1.75,4.46), Educational status (AOR = 0.29; 95% CI = 0.16,0.56) for who can’t read & write, (AOR = 0.41; 95% CI = 0.23,0.74) read & write & (AOR = 0.45;95% CI = 0.27,0.76) for primary school. exposure to diabetic education (AOR = 1.84; 95% CI = 1.31,2.58) having ≥ 2 sources of information (AOR = 2.28;95% CI = 1.57,3.32) moderate social support (AOR = 1.94;95%CI = 1.32,2.87), strong social support (AOR = 2.73;95% CI = 1.75,4.26),& Residence; lives in urban (AOR = 1.65; 95% CI = 1.14,2.39) were significant. Conclusion Compared to previous research carried out in Ethiopia, the overall diabetic health literacy level was low. Factors associated with diabetic Health Literacy were age, educational status, sources of information, attending diabetic education, social support and residence. Understanding of these factors might be the way for assisting patients and targeting specific intervention to develop patient’s diabetic health literacy.