Factors Related to Health Literacy of Individuals With Systemic Arterial Hypertension: An Integrative Review

Abstract

Health Literacy (HL) is understood as the ability to seek and understand health information, such as those transmitted by professionals for the control and prevention of diseases, and from that to be able to maintain it optimally. The SL is essential for the care of chronic diseases such as hypertension, since the disease requires special care and changes in lifestyle, such as eating habits and physical activity. As an example, we have systemic arterial hypertension, which is a chronic disease, very prevalent in the elderly, a population that coincidentally has an inadequate level of HL in the current scenario, a fact that is worrisome, given the disease's ability to evolve. The present study consists of an integrative literature review, where the search for articles was performed on the Virtual Health Library (VHL) platform, in the databases of the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health (PubMED), Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE) and Cochrane, using the descriptors "health literacy", "systemic arterial hypertension (hypertension)" and "elderly (aged)", using the Boolean operator AND. The search generated 455 results, of which 14 met the inclusion criteria. Of these, four showed the individual's sociodemographic data as an influential factor in the HL, three indicated educational intervention as a factor and seven indicated pharmacological adherence as determining factors in the outcome of health literacy of patients with systemic arterial hypertension.