Health Literacy and Self-Care in Diabetes Disease; a Systematic Review

Aims: The present study was conducted to review the relationship between health literacy and self-care of diabetic patients. Information Methods: This study is a systematic review based on the PRISMA statement (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) and was implemented systematically through an electronic search in Iran Medex, SID, Magiran databases, Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar, and Science Direct from January 2011 to April 2020. The terms were used, including health literacy, self-care, diabetes and their combinations. To maximize the comprehensiveness of the search in Persian references, general and general Persian keywords, including health literacy, self-care, diabetes self-care, health literacy, and self-care, health literacy, and diabetes and their possible combinations in the abstract, title, and keywords were used “AND” and “OR” operators were used for this purpose. For the English equivalent of Latin and MESHE, the words were searched, including “Health literacy”, “diabetes”, “self-care”, “Diabetes self-care”, and a combination of the “AND” and “OR” operators. Findings: The results showed that in most studies there is a significant relationship between health literacy and self-care in patients with diabetes. Conclusion: Health literacy plays an important and key role in promoting self-care behaviors in diabetic patients. It requires paying attention to health literacy and adopting strategies to improve the health literacy of diabetic patients.