Health literacy and social support in nursing homes

Abstract

Objective To investigate the status quo of health literacy and social support in nursing homes. Methods A cluster sampling method was used to recruit 1452 elderly people from nursing homes of Urumuqi, Changji, Shihezi and Karamay during September 2011 and June 2012.All the participants were reviewed for Health Literacy Scale, Social Support Scale and Individual Traits questionnaire.Student's t test, One-Way ANOVA and Pearson correlation analysis were used for data analysis. Results A total of 1396 elderly people completed the survey.The average age of the subjects were (77.4±8.5) years old.The health literacy score was 71.7±28.4, including health knowledge 32.5±16.9, health attitudes 22.8±7.4, health behavior 9.6±3.9, and health skills 6.2±5.1.The social support score was 31.3±7.3, including subjective support 18.1±4.9, objective support 6.1±2.3, and support availability 7.2±2.3.For health literacy scores, males were higher than females, and Han nationality was higer than minority.Social support was negatively correlated with age and positively correlated with education lever.Pearson correlation analysis showed that the correlation coefficient of health literacy with social support was 0.3. Conclusion The elderly people living at nursing homes show lower health literacy and social support, who may need much more attention and assistance from professionals. Key words: Health literacy; Aged; Social support