Health Literacy Level Among Future Teachers At The Beginning Of Undergraduate Education

Abstract

The global situation concerning the incidence of infectious and non-communicable diseases emphasises the need for increased health literacy as an important aspect influencing health and life quality. Therefore, WHO has announced strategic plans to strengthen and coordinate these activities. In the Czech Republic, the strategic documents apply to all age and professional groups. A large part relates to the area of education. For these reasons, the authors performed a research study aimed at future teachers, whose health literacy is not affected by professional training but previous education. The paper presents the results of a research study on health literacy among students in the first grades of teacher training courses. The research was carried out in 2018/2019 and involved a representative sample of 253 students of the Faculty of Education, Palacký University Olomouc. The authors used a research instrument designed by WHO and provided by the National Institute of Public Health in Prague. The reliability is r=0.91. The results bring alarming findings. A total of 86.17% of students showed an inadequate level and 13.83% a problematic level of general health literacy. None of the respondents achieved an excellent or sufficient level. Students of Health education with a focus on education achieved a higher overall level of health literacy compared with students of other teacher training programmes, but without a statistically significant difference (p=0.10). Other surprising results concerned gender-based differences in the level of health literacy; men showed a higher level of health literacy than women, again without statistical significance (p=0.63).