Health Literacy, Diabetic Knowledge, and Diabetic Self-care among Foreign Diabetic Patients at a Hospital in South Korea

Eun Ae Koh; Hyojung Park

doi:10.7469/kjan.2015.27.4.397

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Koh and Park: Health Literacy, Diabetic Knowledge, and Diabetic Self-care among Foreign Diabetic Patients at a Hospital in South Korea

Original Article

Korean J Adult Nurs 2015;27(4):397-405.

Published online: NaN August 2015

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7469/kjan.2015.27.4.397

Health Literacy, Diabetic Knowledge, and Diabetic Self-care among Foreign Diabetic Patients at a Hospital in South Korea

Eun Ae Koh¹, Hyojung Park²

^¹Graduate School, Ewha Womans University ․ Samsung Medical Center, Seoul

^²Division of Nursing Science, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Korea

Corresponding author: Park, Hyojung Division of Nursing Science, Ewha Womans University, 52 Ewhayeodae-gil, seodaemun-gu, Seoul 120-750, Korea. Tel: +82-2-3277-2824, Fax: +82-2-3277-2850, E-mail: hyojungp@ewha.ac.kr

Received 23 February 201526 July 2015 Accepted 13 August 2015

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 investigate health literacy, diabetic knowledge, and diabetic self-care among foreign diabetic patients at a hospital in South Korea.

Methods

Participants was 134 foreign patients diagnosed with diabetes and who understand English. Data were analyzed by SPSS version 20.0.

Results

Health literacy significantly differed with HbA1c levels, whereas diabetic knowledge significantly differed with education levels, and time since diagnosed. Diabetic self-care significantly differed with time since the diagnosis. Health literacy significantly differed with diabetic knowledge and diabetic self-care. There was a correlation between health literacy and diabetic knowledge and between diabetic knowledge and diabetic self-care but not between health literacy and diabetic self-care.

Conclusion

There are significant results on health literacy, diabetic knowledge and diabetic self-care. Subject with adequate health literacy had high scores on diabetic knowledge and self-care.

Keywords: Immigrants, Diabetic mellitus, Health literacy, Knowledge, Self-care

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Table 1.

General Characteristics and Disease related Cha racteristics (N=134

Characteristics	Categories	n (%)
Age (year)	≤19	12 (9.0)
	20~39	19 (14.2)
	40~59	71 (53.0)
	≥60	32 (23.8)
Gender	Male	84 (62.7)
Gender	Female	50 (37.3)
Ethnic	American	121 (90.3)
Ethnic	European	13 (9.7)
Education level	＜High school	7 (5.2)
	High school	23 (17.2)
	College	71 (53.0)
	Graduate school	33 (24.6)
Duration of DM (year)	＜1	32 (23.9)
	≥1~＜5	49 (36.6)
	≥5~＜10	18 (13.4)
	≥10	35 (26.1)
Duration of staying Korea (year)	＜1	33 (24.6)
	≥1~＜5	63 (47.0)
	≥5~＜10	11 (8.2)
	≥10	27 (20.2)
Smoking	Yes	14 (10.4)
Smoking	No	120 (89.6)
HbA1c	＜6.5%	128 (95.5)
HbA1c	≥6.5%	6 (4.5)

Table 2.

Levels of Health Literacy, Diabetic Knowledge, and Self-care (N=134)

Characteristics	n (%) or M±SD	Range
Health literacy	4.33±1.79	0~6
Limited literacy	13 (9.7)	0~1
Possibility of limited literacy	20 (14.9)	2~3
Adequate literacy	101 (75.4)	4~6
Diabetic knowledge	13.97±4.16	0~23
Self-care behaviors	3.77±1.27	0~7
Diet	3.94±1.41	0~7
Exercise	3.60±1.83	0~7
Blood glucose test	3.70±2.56	0~7
Foot care	3.66±1.92	0~7

Table 3.

Health Literacy, Diabetic Knowledge and Self-care according to the Participants' Characteristics (N=134

Characteristics	Categories	Health literacy		Diabetic knowledge		Self-care
Characteristics	Categories	M±SD	t or F (p)	M±SD	t or F (p)	M±SD	t or F (p)
Gender	Male	4.31±1.64	-0.15	13.74±3.87	-0.80	3.85±1.32	0.91
Gender	Female	4.36±2.04	(.882)	14.36±4.62	(.426)	3.64±1.19	(.362)
Age (year)	≤19	3.42±2.07	2.34	130±5.34	1.77	4.16±0.95	2.41
	20~39	3.84±1.61	(.076)	12.21±3.69	(.157)	3.39±0.85	(.070)
	40~59	4.65±1.54		14.44±4.00		3.62±1.37
	≥60	4.25±2.17		14.34±4.14		4.18±1.26
Education	＜High school^a	2.86±2.19	2.49	9.29±3.73	3.87	3.71±1.03	0.01
	High scool^b	4.00±1.86	(.064)	14.87±3.48	(.011)	3.79±1.25	(.998)
	College^c	4.39±1.63		13.83±4.28	a＜b, c, d	3.78±1.19
	Graduate school^d	4.73±1.89		14.64±3.86		3.75±1.53
Duration of DM	＜1^a	4.09±2.04	0.82	13.22±3.93	4.19	3.77±1.31	2.88
	≥1~＜5^b	4.16±1.81	(.484)	12.90±4.13	(.007)	3.61±1.05	(.039)
	≥5~＜10^c	4.72±1.36		14.61±2.87	a, b＜d	3.29±1.57	c＜d
	≥10^d	4.57±1.74		15.83±4.39		4.25±1.25
Duration of staying Korea	＜1^a	3.76±1.77	1.85	12.12±4.69	3.39	3.56±1.16	1.24
	≥1~＜5^b	4.63±1.80	(.142)	14.89±4.10	(.020)	3.86±1.20	(.297)
	≥5~＜10^c	4.55±1.97		13.91±4.70		4.31±1.52
	≥10^d	4.22±1.65		14.11±2.52		3.60±1.43
Smoking	Yes	3.86±2.28	-0.84	13.71±4.91	-0.24	3.19±1.37	-1.84
Smoking	No	4.38±1.73	(.417)	14.00±4.08	(.809)	3.84±1.25	(.069)
HbA1c (%)	＜6.5%	5.83±0.41	6.83	15.83±1.83	2.33	3.79±1.28	0.89
HbA1c (%)	≥6.5%	4.26±1.80	(＜.001)	13.88±4.22	(.049)	3.32±1.11	(.373)

Table 4.

Comparison of Diabetic Knowledge and Self-care according to the Health Literacy (N=134)

Variables	Diabetic knowledge		Self-care
Variables	M±SD	t or F (p)	M±SD	t or F (p)
Limited literacy^a	10.00±2.92	13.85	2.85±1.10	4.28
Possibility of limited literacy^b	11.70±4.00	(＜.001)	4.06±1.14	(.016)
Adequate literacy^c	14.93±3.86	a, b＜c	3.83±1.27	a＜b, c

Table 5.

Correlation between Health Literacy, Diabetic Knowledge, and Self-care (N=134)

Variables	Health literacy	Diabetic knowledge	Self-care
Health literacy	1.00
Diabetic knowledge	.55	1.00
Self-care	.13	.29	1.00

p＜.05, p＜.01, p＜.001.

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