Relationship Between Health Literacy and Self-Care in Heart Failure Patients

Heart failure is a chronic and costly disease.  A Healthy lifestyle is effective in prevention and health literacy is also needed to improve the self-care of these hospitalized heart failure patients. This descriptive cross-sectional study of correlation type was carried out on 180 heart failure patients hospitalized in Zahedan hospitals in 2018. Samples were selected using convenient sampling method. Data were collected through a questionnaire containing three parts of demographic information, health literacy, and self-care. Data were analyzed using SPSS 19 software and statistical tests including independent T-test, ANOVA and Pearson correlation coefficient. The mean score of the health literacy level was 22.7 (out of 43) with a standard deviation of 6.6. Based on the results, 40% of patients had inadequate health literacy level, 45% had a moderate level of health literacy and 15% had adequate and desirable health literacy level. The mean self-care score was 44.7 and the standard deviation was 1.9 (out of 80) which was higher than the average. Based on the Pearson correlation coefficient, there was a direct and significant relationship between health literacy and self-care (r = 0.48, p = 0.021); with increasing health literacy, self-care also improved. The findings of this study showed that in patients with heart failure, self-care level increases with increasing health literacy. Therefore, educational interventions in this field are recommended to improve the health literacy of these patients. Paper Type: Research Article