Health Literacy of Self-care Behaviors for Blood Glucose Control in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes, Chainat Province

Abstract

        The effective care for type II Diabetes Mellitus need continuous treatment and self-care management therefore, health literacy is an essential factor making better result on diabetic care. This research aims to analyze the correlation between patient’s characteristics and health literacy and to investigate factor of health literacy on self-care behaviors. 366 type II diabetes patients from Chainat province were interviewed and the data were analyzed using Chi-Square, Pearson’s correlation coefficient and Stepwise multiple regression.

        The result showed 6 percent of participants were adequate health literacy, there was only 94 percent of participants had marginal (64.2%) and inadequate (29.8%) health literacy. Additionally, Chi-Square test and Pearson’s correlation coefficient analysis showed factors significantly related to health literacy were age, education level, occupation, net income and duration of being diagnosed with diabetes. Furthermore, the conceptual idea of health literacy including cognitive, self-management, and decision skills influenced the prediction of self-care behaviors of type II diabetic participants at 17.9 percent (R² = 0.179, p < .001). Moreover, self-management was the most influential factor for prediction the self-care behaviors of type II diabetes patients. (ß = .170, p < .001).

        In conclusion, health literacy correlated to self-behavior management consequently, to increase better medical care result, government agencies and stakeholders should increase health literacy of type II diabetic patients.