Influencing Factors on Functional Health Literacy among the Rural Elderly

Ji Yeon Park; Kyung Ja June

doi:10.12799/jkachn.2011.22.1.75

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Park and June: Influencing Factors on Functional Health Literacy among the Rural Elderly

Original Article

Journal of Korean Academy of Community Health Nursing 2011; 22(1): 75-85.

Published online: 4 April 2014

DOI: https://doi.org/10.12799/jkachn.2011.22.1.75

Influencing Factors on Functional Health Literacy among the Rural Elderly

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 28 February 2011 Revised 22 March 2011 Accepted 24 March 2011

(open-access):

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.

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

Figures and Tables

Table 1

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

Table 2

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

FHL=functional health literacy.

^†Missing excluded.

Table 3

Functional Health Literacy Levels according to Health Status

Table 4

Functional Health Literacy Levels according to General Literacy Level

Table 5

Influencing Factors on Functional Health Literacy

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