The Relationship Between Health Literacy and Self - care Health Behaviors Among Older Adults in Muen Wai Sub-district, Muang District, Nakhon Ratchasima Province

Abstract

Health literacy helps to promote health and maintain good health conditions among older adults with health problems. This research was a descriptive study. The objectives were to study health literacy, self-care health behaviors, and examine the relationships between health literacy and self-care health behaviors. The participants were 172 older adults, aged 60 to 80 years old, in the area of the Ponesung health-promoting hospital in the Muen Wai sub-district, Muang District, of Nakhon Ratchasima Province, Thailand. They were recruited by simple random sampling. Data were collected using questionnaires to assess their health literacy and self-care health behaviors. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics with a fisher’s exact test distribution with significance level of .05. The analysis found that the average age of the participants was 67.22 years (SD =5.59). Most of them were female  (54.65%),  had graduated primary school (62.21%), had never received training in health self-care from any other organization (64.53%), were able to read and write Thai (87.79%), had access to the internet in their homes (63.37%), were able to use the internet but not proficiently (49.54%), used the internet for relaxation (39.45%), and had high level of health literacy in terms of health-care decision-making . They had good levels of self-care health behaviors in terms of weather and environmentally related issies, were (M = 2.48, SD = 0.53). The study found a statistically significant relationship between the older adult’s self-care health behaviors and their health literacy, in terms of knowledge and understanding, access to health information, communication, decision-making, self-management, and health care media literacy  (p < .001). Therefore, creating and implementing programs to promote access to health information among older adults is recommended.