Abstract
Background: Health literacy and use of preventative care are important aspects of health care. Health literacy, or the ability to understand basic medical knowledge, affects a person’s understanding and use of preventative health care. Aim: This study was designed to investigate the perception of health literacy and use of preventative care resources by female undergraduate college students. Method: This is a quantitative, non-experimental descriptive research study with a cross-sectional design. A 30-item demographic yes or no and a Likert-type scale was used to survey 62 female college students living in a dormitory. The goal was to discover if additional education is needed to obtain optimal utilization of health care resources for this population. Result: Surveying the undergraduate nursing and non-nursing students helped raise awareness of health literacy of the female students. Conclusion: Understanding the use of preventative care resources by this population may influence the way nursing interventions are formulated.
Highlights
Health literacy is an important public health issue and is receiving growing attention (Rong et al, 2017). Von Wagner, Steptoe, Wolf, and Wardle (2009) indicated that health literacy and perceptions of preventative care is a topic of interest as it is highly important to the female students and it has the potential to decrease healthcare costs
The first research question this study focused on was, “What is the health literacy of undergraduate female college students?” The items assessing this aspect of the research were prevention of diabetes, affordability of healthcare, health information is obtained from primary physician, the need for a pelvic exam, self breast exams, importance of human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine, the ability to get health insurance, health information access, the necessity of a pelvic exam, knowledge of the time to begin pelvic exams, and current access to a primary care physician
In conclusion of the data analysis, overall the undergraduate female participants are fairly knowledgeable about health care with the ratings on a 5-point Likert type scale (1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree)
Summary
Health literacy is an important public health issue and is receiving growing attention (Rong et al, 2017). Von Wagner, Steptoe, Wolf, and Wardle (2009) indicated that health literacy and perceptions of preventative care is a topic of interest as it is highly important to the female students and it has the potential to decrease healthcare costs. The student with low health literacy is unlikely to participate in preventative care and may rely on personal perceptions and life experience to make healthcare decisions This leads to increased emergency room use and a decrease in the use of a primary care physician (von Wagner et al, 2009; Schneider, 2012). The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate the personal perceptions regarding health literacy, and the use of preventative healthcare resources by undergraduate female college students. Aim: This study was designed to investigate the perception of health literacy and use of preventative care resources by female undergraduate college students. In 1997, this organization launched a campaign advocating students to be vaccinated against the meningococcal disease; as college students living in dorms were six times more likely to contract this illness (Mack, 2011)
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