Abstract
Completing a course in Immunology is expected to improve health care knowledge (HCK), which in turn is anticipated to influence a healthy lifestyle (HLS), controlled use of health care services (HCS) and an awareness of emerging health care concerns (HCC). This cross-sectional study was designed to determine whether these interrelationships are empirically supported. Participants involved in this study were government servants from two ministries in Malaysia (n = 356) and university students from a local university (n = 147). Participants were selected using the non-random purposive sampling method. Data were collected using a self-developed questionnaire, which had been validated in a pilot study involving similar subjects. The questionnaire items were analyzed using Rasch analysis, SPSS version 21 and AMOS version 22. Results have shown that participants who followed a course in Immunology (CoI) had a higher primary HCK (Mean = 0.69 logit, SD = 1.29 logits) compared with those who had not (Mean = -0.27logit, SD = 1.26 logits). Overall, there were significant correlations among the HLS, the awareness of emerging HCC, and the controlled use of HCS (p <0.001). However, no significant correlations were observed between primary HCK and the other variables. However, significant positive correlation was observed between primary HCK and controlled use of HCS for the group without CoI. Path analysis showed that the awareness of emerging HCC exerted a positive influence on controlled use of HCS (β = 0.156, p < .001) and on HLS (β = 0.224, p < .001). These findings suggest that having CoI helps increase primary HCK which influences controlled use of HCS but does not necessarily influence HLS. Hence, introducing Immunology at various levels of education and increasing the public awareness of emerging HCC might help to improve population health en masse. In addition, further investigations on the factors affecting HLS is required to provide a better understanding on the relationship between primary HCK and HLS.
Highlights
Health literacy represents the necessary skills for an individual to appropriately and effectively act in the health care environment and use health related information
The questionnaire consisted of four main sections representing four constructs: healthy lifestyle (HLS), health care services (HCS), health care knowledge (HCK) and health care concerns (HCC)
The results showed that participants who received course in Immunology (CoI) scored significantly higher on primary HCK (p = .000) compared to those without
Summary
Health literacy represents the necessary skills for an individual to appropriately and effectively act in the health care environment and use health related information. Promotion of health literacy includes community-based education intervention towards specific health concerns; such as cardiovascular diseases, and vaccination against human papiloma virus (HPV) [3, 4, 5]. While evaluating “Child and Adolescent Trial for Cardiovascular Health”, Hoelscher and colleagues showed that prior training had the greatest impact on positive health behaviours while staff training was identified as an important factor in achieving institutionalization of school-based health education programs [3]. In addition to comprehensive communications with physicians, health literacy or health education plays important roles in the (i) maintenance of a healthy lifestyle (HLS), (ii) awareness of emerging health care concerns (HCC) such as emerging diseases and their prevention, (iii) prudent use of health care services (HCS) such as vaccinations, antibiotics and over-the-counter (OTC) drugs
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