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Influencing Factors on Functional Health Literacy among the Rural Elderly

Article information

Res Community Public Health Nurs. 2011;22(1):75-85
Publication date (electronic) : 2014 April 04
doi : https://doi.org/10.12799/jkachn.2011.22.1.75
Ji Yeon Park1, Kyung Ja June2
1Doctoral Student, College of Nursing Chungnam National University, Korea.
2Professor, Department of Nursing, Soonchunhyang University, Korea.
Address reprint requests to: June, Kyung Ja, Department of Nursing, Soonchunhyang University, 366-1 Ssangyong-dong, Chonan 330-090, Korea. Tel: 82-41-570-2495, Fax: 82-41-579-2495, kjajune@sch.ac.kr
Received 2011 February 28; Revised 2011 March 22; Accepted 2011 March 24.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to describe the status of the functional health literacy of the elderly living in a rural community and to identify the influencing factors on the functional health literacy.

Methods

Subjects (n=238) aged over 60 years were selected for data collection. Functional health literacy was measured by Korean Health Literacy, which consisted of 15 items including eight numeracy and seven comprehension items. Descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA with Scheffe test, and stepwise multiple regression were used to analyze the data.

Results

The mean score of total functional health literacy was 6.66±3.31, numeracy was 3.52±1.76, and comprehension was 3.41±2.10. Of the subjects, 39.1% showed a low score below the median split. In the results of stepwise multiple regression, the factors affecting functional health literacy were basic literacy, age, number of chronic diseases, self-reported health status, and gender. These factors accounted for 33.0% of functional health literacy.

Conclusion

These results suggest that interventions for improving functional health literacy are necessary to enhance elders' ability of self-care management. In addition, it is needed to take into account the individual characteristics of the subjects depending on their gender, age, and health status.

Keywords: Health literacy; Aged; Rural health service

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Article information Continued

© 2011 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.

Table 1

Proportion of Subjects Correctly Answering Functional Health Literacy Test Items (N=238)

Table 1

Table 2

Functional Health Literacy Levels according to Demographic and Socio-economic Characteristics (N=238)

Table 2

FHL=functional health literacy.

†Missing excluded.

Table 3

Functional Health Literacy Levels according to Health Status

Table 3

Table 4

Functional Health Literacy Levels according to General Literacy Level

Table 4

Table 5

Influencing Factors on Functional Health Literacy

Table 5