ARTICLE INFO

Article Type

Original Research

Authors

Sajadi   F.S. (1)
Sajadi   H.S. (2)
Panahi   R. (*3)






(*3) Health Education & Promotion Department, School of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran
(1) Statistics Department, Sciences Faculty, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran
(2) National Institute for Health Research, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

Correspondence

Address: Tarbiat Modares University, Nasr Bridge, Jalal-Al-Ahmad Highway, Tehran, Iran
Phone:
Fax:
peimanpanahi63@yahoo.com

Article History

Received:  May  20, 2019
Accepted:  August 6, 2019
ePublished:  March 18, 2020

BRIEF TEXT


The most common definition of health literacy is the capacity of individuals to obtain, process, and understand the health information and essential services needed for appropriate health care decisions [1].

... [2-10]. Considering the role of health literacy in improving health indicators, its assessment is one of the most important indicators of health system performance evaluation in achieving the considered goals [11]. The prevalence of health literacy in Iran, according to a national survey conducted in 2015, was estimated at about 44%, meaning that almost one in two Iranians had a limited health literacy [12]. Also the results of a study by Fransen et al. in the Netherlands in 2011 showed that 79% of the participants had borderline and inadequate health literacy [13]. ... [14, 15]. Concerning the level of health literacy among students, although it is often assumed that students have adequate health literacy, but the findings of the Panahi et al. study showed that more than one-third of the studied students had inadequate and not sufficient levels [16]. The results of Azimi et al. study also showed that a wide range of students had inadequate and borderline health literacy [15]. In a study by Zhang & Kui [17], the level of student health literacy was low, whereas Wozikis et al. [18] reported a moderate level of health literacy in student.

The purpose of this study was to determine the level of health literacy and some effective factors on it in Isfahan University students.

This research was a cross-sectional descriptive-analytical study.

The study population (15603 students) was studying in Isfahan University in the second semester of 2018-19.

Isfahan University includes 13 faculties. Based on the majors provided in the faculties, these faculties were divided into three categories: Humanities, Basic Sciences and Technical-Engineering. Sample size was determined 360 subjects by stratified sampling method and the sample size was obtained using Cochran sample size formula and considering p = 0.6, and for the frequency of desirable health literacy in students [16], error level of 5% and accuracy of 0.05 were also considered. For more accuracy and also considering the 5% attrition, 380 individuals were considered.

The Health Literacy for Iranian Adults (HELIA) [19, 20] was used. The questionnaire included demographic and contextual information, including age, gender, years of education, university, grade, parental education, and city. Then, the data obtained from each questionnaire were entered into SPSS software and analyzed using descriptive statistics and logistic regression. The "limited health literacy" and "desirable health literacy" were extracted from the categories of "not adequate and insufficient", and "excellent and sufficient" [12] and used in logistic regression. It should be noted that the variables entered simultaneously to the model and classified by contrasting independent variables as an index and the first class of variables was selected as the reference class.

In this study, 380 students included, of whom 5 students were excluded due to their incomplete questionnaires (98.7% participation rate). The mean age of the subjects was 20.97 ± 3.86 years. The highest numbers of students were studying in B.Sc degree and most of them were girls (Table 1).34.7% of the students had limited health literacy and 65.3% had good health literacy. The mean score of health literacy was 77.96 ±16.96 out of 100 (Table 2).There was a significant relationship between health literacy and the school (p = 0.035); the odds ratio of having good health literacy among the students of the Faculty of Basic Sciences was 1.73 times higher than those of the Faculty of Humanities. There was also a significant relationship between health literacy and grade of the students (p = 0.028); the odds ratio of having good health literacy in PhD and Master's degree students were 1.1 and 1.03 times higher than those with Bachelor's degree, respectively. There was no relationship between health literacy and other demographic and contextual variables (p> 0.05; Table 3).

The results of the present study showed that the health literacy of the students participating in the study was at a desirable level. This finding was inconsistent with the results of Panahi et al. [16], Ahmadi et al. [21], Azimi et al. [15], Mollakhili et al. [22], Wozikis et al. [18] and Zhang & Kui [17] as level of health literacy in the present study was higher than all the above-mentioned studies, which can be due to different used tools to measure health literacy [15, 17, 18, 22] and also including higher education students in the present study. ... [23]…. [24, 25]. There was also a significant relationship between health literacy and educational grade of students. This finding is in agreement with the results of studies by Ziapour & Kianipour [25], Javadzadeh et al. [26] and Mahdavi et al. [27]. ... [28].

Based on the results of the present study, it is suggested that basic health information be included in the curricula of Humanities and Technical-Engineering in undergraduate education.

Given that this study was conducted only among students of Isfahan University, the results of this study cannot be generalized to students in other cities.

The health literacy of the students participating in the study was at a desirable level. Health literacy was also correlated with grade and college, and postgraduate students and students of Basic Sciences had higher health literacy.

The authors would like to acknowledge all the students who collaborated with us in completing this research and questionnaires.

None.

This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the University of Isfahan (IR.UI.REC.1397.166) and the essential introductions and ethics codes were obtained.

This study was funded by the authors.

TABLES and CHARTS

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