Health Literacy in Patients with Ischemic Heart Diseases

Although cardiovascular diseases are at the head of health problems in Iran, few studies examined the health literacy of patients with ischemic heart diseases (IHD). Therefore, this study was conducted to evaluate the level of health literacy and its related factors in patients with IHD.

This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in 2017 on 317 patients with IHD who were hospitalized in Shahid Beheshti Hospital in Kashan in 2017. The data collection tool was a questionnaire including demographic characteristics and Iranian health literacy questionnaire (HELIA). Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, independent t-test, analysis of variance, Pearson correlation coefficient and regression. The level of significance in all testes was selected as

The mean(SD) age of participants was 57.99 (12.07) years. Overall, 5.3% of patients had good health literacy, 81.8% had moderate health literacy and 13% had poor health literacy. There was a correlation between the mean percentage of acquired literacy score and variables such as location, age, history of receiving training about illness, duration of illness, having other underlying illness, education level, family size, and source of health information (P <0.05). Regression analysis showed that among all factors, only age, education level, the source of information about health and disease, the duration of ischemic heart disease and co-morbidity could predict health literacy in patients with ischemic heart disease.

The health literacy of patients with ischemic heart disease was not optimal. Nurses and other health care providers should try to allocate time in their care programs to assess the health literacy of patients with ischemic heart disease and create plans for promoting it.