The Relationship between Health Literacy and the Use of Social Networking in Administrative Staff of Tehran University of Medical Sciences

Today, retention and improvement of health employees is an important point in health system. Health literacy is one of the most important issues for the promotion of public health by affecting the decisions made by the health officials. The current study aimed at determining the association between health literacy and use of social networks among administrative staff in Tehran University of Medical Sciences.
The current cross sectional study was conducted on 150 administrative staff of Tehran University of Medical Sciences. The data collection tool was a three-part questionnaire including demographic information, health literacy, and use of social networks. Descriptive statistics such as absolute and relative frequency and statistical tests such as Pearson correlation were used with SPSS version 18 to analysis the data.
The results showed that the mean age of participants was 5.7 ± 41.6 years and 76.7% were female. The majority (82%) was undergraduate. The average score of their health literacy was 128.8 ± 21.5 and average score of using social networks was 130.6 ± 16.6. The mean score of health literacy and use of social networks was above the average and the two variables have significant and direct relationship. Health literacy aspects including accessibility to health information, understanding, and decision making were a direct relationship with social network in the current research (P According to the research findings, by the widespread use of social networks health literacy and associated behaviors, effective steps can be taken.