The Relationship between Health Literacy and Nutrition Behaviors in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

The level of health literacy is important to take care and treat patients with chronic diseases, such as diabetes. The current study aimed at determining the relationship between health literacy and nutrition behaviors in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus in the 2 villages of Kaghazi and Husseinabad in Aran and Bidgol, Isfahan Province, Iran.
The current descriptive, analytic study was performed on 120 patients with type 2 diabetes in 2 rural health houses of Hosseinabad and Kaghazi villages in 2016. The census sampling method was used. Data were gathered using demographic questionnaire, nutrition behaviors, and HELIA (Health Literacy for Iranian Adults).The collected data were analyzed with SPSS version 17, using descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation), t test, correlation coefficient, and analysis of variance (ANOVA).
In the current study, 80 (66.7%) subjects were female; 29.2% were worker, 5.8% employee, 4.2% retired, 5% unemployed, and the rest were housewives. The mean age of the participants was 48.88 ± 9.57 years. In addition, the mean scores of nutrition behavior and health literacy of the participants were 17.38 ± 2.56, 114 ± 23.21, respectively. The findings of the current study indicated no significant relationship between health literacy and nutrition behaviors, although there was a significant relationship between health literacy and education (P Health literacy is desirable at the level of Iranian community, but due to the lower scores of nutrition behaviors, it is suggested to hold training sessions by health practitioners for patients with diabetes, especially rural females who play a major role in families in order to increase the level of health literacy and optimal nutrition behaviors.