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HOME > J Korean Acad Community Health Nurs > Volume 24(4); 2013 > Article
Original Article
Factors related with Health Literacy in Asian Immigrant Women in Korea
Jisook An, Hye-Ryun Kim, Sook Ja Yang
Journal of Korean Academy of Community Health Nursing 2013;24(4):377-387.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12799/jkachn.2013.24.4.377
Published online: December 31, 2013

1Division of Nursing Science, College of Health Sciences, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Korea.

2Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, Seoul, Korea.

• Received: August 14, 2013   • Revised: November 18, 2013   • Accepted: December 11, 2013

© 2013 Korean Academy of Community Health Nursing

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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  • Purpose
    The purpose of this study is to identify health literacy levels of Asian immigrant women in Korea and factors related with health literacy in them among other sociodemographic characteristics.
  • Methods
    Data were drawn from 671 immigrant women who came from China, Vietnam, the Philippines, and other Asian countries (M age=28.1±5.89) using REALM-R, which consisted of 8 medical words and was translated into Korean (score range: 0~8). Data were analyzed using SPSS/WIN 20.0 program for descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, Scheffé test and multiple regression.
  • Results
    The average score of health literacy was 5.0±2.61. Time since immigration, country of origin, education level, and Korean language proficiency significantly predicted levels of health literacy in Asian immigrant women (adjusted R square=.200, p<.001).
  • Conclusion
    When health care professionals provide health care services and health education, they should consider levels of health literacy and factors related with health literacy in Asian immigrant women.
Table 1
Sociodemographic Characteristics of Study Participants (N=671)
jkachn-24-377-i001.jpg

Cambodia, Thailand, Mongolia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Russia, Uzbekistan, India, Nepal, Iran; Missing data were excluded.

Table 2
Health literacy of Study Participants (N=671)
jkachn-24-377-i002.jpg

These words were not scored as part of the REALM-R, but left at the beginning of the REALM-R to decrease test anxiety and enhance patient confidence.

Table 3
Differences of Health Literacy according to Sociodemographic Characteristics (N=671)
jkachn-24-377-i003.jpg

Cambodia, Thailand, Mongolia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Russia, Uzbekistan, India, Nepal, Iran; Missing data were excluded.

Table 4
Multiple Regression Analysis for Variables Predicting Health Literacy (N=671)
jkachn-24-377-i004.jpg

Dummy variable (1=Vietnam); Dummy variable (1=The Philippines); §Dummy variable (1=Others).

This research was supported by Korea Health Promotion Foundation funded by the Ministry of Health & Welfare.

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