Abstract
to assess the effects of the Alpha-Health intervention on health literacy and health habits of elderly people linked to primary care, when compared to usual health care. a quasi-experimental investigation, with mixed methods, with 21 elderly individuals in each group. Alpha-Health was performed by a nurse for five months. The Short Assessment of Health Literacy for Portuguese Speaking Adults, Health Literacy and questions about health habits were used. In the quantitative analysis, the GEE Model was used, and in the qualitative, thematic analysis. there was an interaction effect on health literacy scores. Health habits such as vaccination, three meals a day and meat consumption had a statistically significant interaction effect. In the qualitative stage, development in skills of accessing, communicating and assessing information was observed as well as stability in the ability to understand. Alpha-Health is an important device for developing elderly's health literacy.
Highlights
Health literacy has been considered a priority to reduce health inequalities[1], through access to information and the ability to use it effectively, contributing to people’s empowerment[2]
Even after Alpha-Health, most participants continued with inadequate health literacy, there was an increase in the proportion of elderly people with adequate health literacy
As for the increase in the proportion of elderly people with adequate health literacy, especially in the Intervention Group (IG), the result was still lower than the proportion found in category Adequate health literacy (43.4%) in a Brazilian study with a cross-sectional design carried out with elderly diabetics from an outpatient clinic in São Paulo[14]
Summary
Health literacy has been considered a priority to reduce health inequalities[1], through access to information and the ability to use it effectively, contributing to people’s empowerment[2]. It is defined as the degree to which people are able to access, understand, communicate and assess health information in order to maintain and promote health throughout life within different context[4]. The development of these health literacy skills can be considered a positive result of health education activities. Some population groups may have low levels of health literacy, such as those made up of elderly people and, especially, those with low income and low education[5] They have great difficulty in performing self-care in the presence of chronic diseases, have high rates of hospital admissions and use of emergency services, in addition to early mortality[6-8]
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