Health literacy in the population covered by family physicians in Askarieh rural health center-2016

Background: Health literacy is today viewed as a global issue. Health literacy is the capacity of each individual to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and health services required to make appropriate decisions. Regarding the importance of health literacy in the population covered by family physicians and the limited number of studies in this regard in Iran, this study aimed to determine the status of health literacy in the population covered by family physicians in Askarieh rural health center in 2016. Methods: This cross-sectional, analytical study was conducted in 2016 on 260 clients who were referred to Askarieh rural health centers. A valid and reliable, 49-item, researcher-made questionnaire on health literacy was completed via interview. Data was analyzed in SPSS16 software using t-test, Pearson correlation, one-way ANOVA and multivariate analysis of variance tests. The significance level was considered less than 0.05. Results: The mean age of participants was 31.78±10.66 years, 73.5% were female, and 86.9% married. From among them, 61.5% held secondary and high school diploma degrees and 59.6% had a moderate family income. The results showed that 26.9% had adequate health literacy. Also, women enjoyed a higher health literacy than men (P=0.03) and individuals with higher levels of education had higher health literacy (P=0.008). Conclusions: A higher level of health literacy reduces the cost of treatment on the government and people. Given the importance of health literacy, it is recommended that healthcare authorities design educational interventions to improve health literacy, particularly among men and individuals with low literacy levels.