HEALTH LITERACY IN OLDER ADULTS AND ITS RELATED FACTORS

Abstract

Background: This study was to investigate the association between health literacy (HL) and associated factors among older population in Thu Duc district, Ho Chi Minh City. Method: A survey was conducted at Thu Duc District, Ho Chi Minh City with the total samples of 301 people in the community from February to May 2018. We recruited people aged 55 years and above, able to listen and understand Vietnamese, without mental illness or emergency situations. Health literacy was measured using the short form of health literacy questionnaire 12 items (HLSF12) which was validated by Duong et al. (2017). Social demographic characteristics, health behaviors and outcomes were also measured. Data were analyzed by using One way ANOVA, multiple linear regression and Pearson correlation analysis. Results: Their average HL score was (24.5 ± 1.3) points, which was at a low level on the scale of 0 to 50. Of all the subjects, 47.5% were males, 27.9%, 31.6% and 31.9% of the subjects had finished primary school, secondary school and, respectively, 8.6% of them had not finished any education level. The mean age, systolic, and diastolic blood pressure were 65.58 ± 8.49 years, 135.1 ± 16.4 mmHg, and 79.7 ± 11.0 mmHg, respectively. The majority of elderly people had a monthly income of under 1.3 million VND/month, which accounted for 37.9%. As for occupation, elderly people fail and do nothing accounted for 36.5%. The percentage of elderly people who do not use community and social services was 86.4%, which was significantly higher than others who use community and social services. In this study, There was significant difference in HL score among the factors of age, gender, education level, monthly income, marital conditions, occupation, working paid job for 7 days, perceiving health, using community services, feeling loneliness and receiving health education (p ＜ 0.05). HL was significantly higher in the factors of education level (B = 2.86, p = 0.00) and monthly income (B = 2.05, p = 0.00) than other categories. Systolic blood pressure was not associated with HL (p ＞ 0.05). The widowed elderly had lower health literacy score than the divorced elderly. Service/ sale workers had lower level of health literacy than other occupations. Conclusions: The lower health literacy level appeared in the elderly with low education, low accessing health education and daily loneliness. Gender, marital status, and hypertension were not related to literacy levels in older adults. The advantages of improving health literacy is to improve health status which should result in improved people's satisfaction.