Health literacy of the poo

Alena Kajanová, Zuzana Řimnáčová

Abstract: Background: The article is aimed at pointing out that the health literacy of people living below the poverty line is at a very low level. Available research shows
that there are a lot of indicators influencing health literacy. They can include age, gender, place of residence, and education, which is one of the most important indicators. Methods: The main aim of our research was to evaluate on ascertain the health literacy of representative sample of low-income population. Quantitative strategies were used for research. We used short standardized form of the Health literacy questionnaire. The data collection took place in the course of 2017 and the study included 300 respondents in total. We received 254 valid answers through purpose selection and the snowball technique and analyzed results using SPSS software. Results: The results of our study show an inadequate and problematic health literacy in 58.4% of the respondents. We compared socio-demographic indicators with health literacy and found actually a statistically significant relation between education and health literacy and between health condition and health literacy. Conclusion: We find that the health literacy should be strengthened, not only in the group in question, but in the population in general, as their health literacy is inadequate either.

Keywords: health literacy; poor people; poverty line; health condition; poverty
Pages: 5 – 16
Doi: 10.17846/PP.2019.2.1.5-16
Source: Pomáhajúce profesie, 2019, vol. 2, issue 1, pp. 5-16 (PDF)
Language: English

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