Factors Associated with Health Literacy among Thai older adults
Keywords:
: personal factors, health literacy, older population, health serviceAbstract
Background: Health is one of the issues of the most concern in a super-aged society. In order to improve this population’s overall health, encouraging self-care and health literacy (HL) must be prioritized.Objective: This study aimed to identify the level of HL and factors that associated with HL level of Thai older adults.Method: This cross-sectional survey utilized an online questionnaire and collected response from 778 respondents from April 2020 to May 2020. The Thai Health Literacy Scale was applied as a measurement tool. One-way ANOVA and independent t-test were applied to explore associations between the HL and the personal factors. Result: Most respondents (52.83%) had moderate HL, and a significant proportion of older individuals (42.28%) had high HL. Five factors were significantly associated with HL, including education (p < 0.001), occupation (p < 0.001), financial status (p < 0.001), travel time to the nearest health facility (p = 0.001), and community engagement (p = 0.007). Contrastingly, age, gender, marital status, underlying health conditions, and living arrangement were not significantly associated with HL. Conclusion: Five factors were associated with HL namely, education, occupation, financial status, travel time to the nearest health facility and community engagement. Thus, health services for older adults and community activities should be encourage in order to improve HL.
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