Association between Health Literacy and Life Style in Married Rural Women in Izeh, Iran

Health literacy and lifestyle are social determinants of health. This study was conducted to investigate health literacy and determine lifestyle from the viewpoint of social determinants of health as well as to reveal relationships between Health literacy and lifestyle according to social determinants of health in married rural women in Izeh.
This cross sectional and descriptive-analytical study was conducted on 240 rural women of 18-45 years old from Izeh district in 2013using random cluster sampling method. Data were collected using questionnaires of "Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults (TOFHLA)", “Development of Mother's Lifestyle Scale with an Approach to Social Determinants of Health” and "Demographic Characteristics Checklist". Chi square, Kendall's tau-c, and V Cramer's tests were applied to analyze the data using SPSS 19.
The mean age (±sd) of the participants was 28.42± 6.38 years and 50.5% were in elementary and middle school. Sixty two percent of the studied women had low level of the health literacy (borderline and inadequate), 98.3% appropriate occupation status, 77.9% inappropriate physical activity, 31.2% unfavorable nutrition, 4.6% poor stress control, 0.4% improper health behaviors, 2.9% inadequate self-care during pregnancy, and 50.8% had improper social relationships.
Health literacy level was significantly correlated with nutrition (p=0.033, r=0.15) and stress (p=0.007, r= -0.073). However, health literacy had statistically no significant correlations with occupation, physical activity, improper health behaviors, self-care during pregnancy, and social relations.
According to the findings increases in level of the health literacy improves nutritional status, increases stresses and also increases the received cares among studied population. Therefore, health education for this group is suggested to improve their health literacy.