Exploring health literacy and associated factors among individuals registered in family health centers in Batman province

Abstract

Introduction: Health literacy is often defined as one’s capacity to obtain, interpret, and understand basic health information and services to preserve, improve, or recover their health and their ability to make the right choices regarding their health. In this study, we attempted to explore health literacy and associated factors among individuals registered in primary health centers.
 Materials and Methods: We carried out this cross-sectional study with individuals registered infamily health centers in Batman province between October 2018 and March 2019. After obtaining ethical approval from the relevant ethics committee, we collected the data from the participants with a sociodemographic information form and the Turkish version of the European Health Literacy Survey Questionnaire (HLS-EU-Q).
 Findings: Our findings revealed that 62.3% (n = 301) of the participants were females, 52.0% (n= 251) held an undergraduate or higher degree, and 17.6% (n = 85) had a high monthly income.The mean age of the participants was found to be 33.1±11.8 years (18-78 years), and 62.1% (n =300) were younger than 35 years. We discovered that the younger participants (p = 0.003), thosewith higher educational attainment (p = 0.001), and those without chronic disease (p = 0.005)had significantly greater health literacy. Given gender and other sociodemographic characteristics demonstrating significant relationships with health literacy, our logistic regression findings also showed that income level, perceived socioeconomic and health status, and reading enjoyment had significant impacts on the participants’ sufficient/excellent health literacy level.
 Conclusion: Thus, the results of this research and prospective studies would further facilitate developing policies for boosting health literacy to protect public health and to alleviate inequalities in accessing healthcare services.