The effect of health literacy on awareness of the primary care services in patients applying to the tertiary health care

Büşra Yaprak, Ayşe Çaylan, Hamdi Nezih Dağdeviren

Keywords: primary care, health literacy, using health care

Aim:

Health literacy includes the skills to read, understand, interpret and use the necessary information to maintain and improve people’s own health to avoid or manage their diseases. Studies have found that various factors effect health literacy. In our study, it was aimed to investigate the effects of the health literacy levels of the patients who applied to Trakya University Health Center for Medical Research and Practice polyclinics about their knowledge concerning primary health care services.

Method:

A questionnaire with 99 questions included socio-demographic information Adult Health Literacy Scale, information on health system use and primary health care services and applied face-to-face, to 460 people participating in our study.

Results:

The participants consisted of 281 women (61.1%) and 179 men (38.9%). When the Adult Health Literacy Scale scores of the participants were evaluated, the average was found to be 13.43 ± 4.14. It was determined that health literacy levels of women and youth were higher. 35% of the individuals who participated in our study thought they knew primary care services. The average of 24.93 ± 10.41 of 41 questions asked to the participants about the first step were answered correctly. When the relationship between the answers given and the health literacy was examined, it was found that when the number of known services increased, the health literacy increased.

Conclusions:

A part that provides the completion of primary health care services is health literacy. Primary health care services are an important tool to raise the health consciousness and health literacy level of the society which is the primary goal of health education. It is important that primary care physicians, who are the first entry point to the health system, evaluate and educate individuals in terms of health literacy by using their resources effectively.

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